


In a Lifetime

by sparrow2000



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 01:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8351062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow2000/pseuds/sparrow2000
Summary: Xander struggles to come to grips with his life after a tragic event in Africa and goes in search of a mystery from his childhood.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: nothing to be scared of  
> Warnings: nope, nothing to worry about unless you hate OC's  
> Disclaimer – Joss and Mutant Enemy et al own everything. I own nothing  
> Beta extraordinaire:thismaz  
> Feedback: is cherished, cuddled and called George. Either here or at the original story entries on my [LJ](http://sparrow2000.livejournal.com/?skip=10&tag=in%20a%20lifetime)
> 
> I originally wrote this story back in 2009, but it's only now I'm getting around to posting it here.

He’s still not one hundred per cent sure what pushed him over the edge; there were so many things to chose from. It could have been the death of his fourth Slayer, killed by her uncle because he thought she was possessed. Or maybe it was the way his fifth Slayer was killed, slowly, agonisingly, by the warlock trying to wrestle the slayer essence from her soul. But if he was backed into a corner, and god knows he’d been up close and personal with enough corners in Africa, he would admit that it was probably the murder of his sixth Slayer – killed by his own hand when she tore through four small villages, convinced that they were sheltering a family of demons from her. They were; the demons were peaceful, but that wasn’t the point. The point was culpability – his, his friends', the Council's, all the factors that led up to the end point. He’d run after her as fast as he could when he realised her intent, but his mere human legs were no match for Slayer speed, until she slowed down at the end of her killing spree. By then it was far too late for the demons and the villagers who'd got in her way. So he’d faced her in a confrontation worthy of any spaghetti western. She’d stood under the African sun, covered in blood, grinning defiantly, sure that she was right. She was a Slayer, a predator, and demons were prey. That was the way it was, that was the way it had always been, she was simply a child of her inheritance and all the knowledge and understanding that he had tried to teach her was cast aside as she wallowed in her supremacy. That was when Xander knew he had run out of options, but he’d still tried to reason with her, to talk her down and she’d laughed at the same time as she rushed at him, blood lust in her eyes. He had dared to try to stop her, to tell her she was wrong and he had to be punished; it was black or white, us or them, alive or dead. He could see the contempt in every movement, just as he’d seen it in her face in unguarded moments as he’d travelled with her over the last few, long months. That was when he’d had his epiphany, that the spell had been arrogance on a mind boggling scale and that for every girl that stepped up to the calling there was another who simply revelled in the power. So he’d drawn his pistol and done the only thing he could. She’d been sixteen and terrifying. He’d shot her twice and watched her limbs twitch, a grim parody of a dog chasing rabbits in its dreams, as she died. 

Three slayers, that’s what they were in his mind – Slayers, with a capital ‘S’. He shied away from their names but they came back to haunt him in the dark watches of the night, when he chased his own prey in his nightmares and the darkness came to the surface – Dafina, meaning ‘Precious Item’, Tanesha, which meant ‘Born on Monday’, a fact that secretly pleased him no end. Then there was Babatee, which as far as he could tell had no special meaning and somehow, that was the unkindest cut of all. However much he tried, their names crept into his soul when his brain wasn’t looking, curling round his heart and squeezing until he could almost hear the organ start to stutter and fail. Then he would wake and breathe in harshly, pushing them back in the box marked ‘Slayer’.

He didn’t let himself think about his first three Slayers. He’d found them, explained why he’d come and sent them to the comforting welcome of Giles, to learn more about what they had become and who they could be. His fault lay in his success in finding them and sending them to be taught – by default, sending them to be killed. He may have saved three girls from confusion and doubt, but it was a temporary reprieve. In his head he lined them up with their successors, acknowledging the fine silk thread which divided one group from the other, and mourned their inevitable loss ahead of time.

He’d killed in Africa and knew that, inch by inch, Africa was killing him. If he stayed he would start to disappear, bit by bit, day by day, death by unavoidable death, until there was nothing left but a tattered eye-patch and the memory of an ideal, gone horribly wrong.

The question was, where would he go? Not to England, to the Council, to Giles and a group of girls who reminded him of all the things he’d come to hate. Not that he hated Giles but, in the privacy of his early morning thoughts, he would admit that he blamed Giles for opening his eyes to the reality of the supernatural in the world. Technically, he understood that if he wanted to blame someone, he should blame Buffy, but she’d had no choice in her calling, whereas Giles... Giles knew what he was doing. Even if he’d railed against his vocation in his youth, in the end, he’d given in and played his part in the long tangled thread that led to now. So Xander realised he couldn’t go back to England, not in his present frame of mind. He knew that with his luck, if he went to mainland Europe he’d bump into Buffy and her vampire of the week. South America meant Willow and, god forbid, Kennedy. Russia was a fleeting thought, but he knew that he’d finish up wallowing in a vat of Moskovskaya or, more likely, the local hooch which would make him go blind in the other eye. India had its attractions. He could picture losing himself in the vastness of Rajasthan, or Gujarat, or in the teeming masses of Mumbai or New Delhi. But he remembered a rumour that Drusilla was in India. That she’d set herself up as a manifestation of Kali, dancing barefoot by the firelight, accepting homage from pilgrims worshipping at her feet. He toyed with the idea of going to see if it was true. It would be so easy to lose himself in her eyes, to become a disciple and forget everything but the dance. He was sure she would accept him, with just the right amount of reverence and childish glee, and the temptation swayed in the hot, night wind before disappearing into the bush, leaving the smallest sigh of regret and rueful acceptance.

He knew where he had to go. That all the places he’d considered and discarded were part of a mental shell game, keeping him diverted from his true destination. Now the cups were turned over and were empty and there was only one left in play. He rolled the thought around in his head, drawing out the moment, as if procrastination would change the outcome. It didn’t. There was only one place he would find the answers he needed to the tumbling thoughts in his head. He’d been dreaming of the journey since he was a small boy and now, as a man, it was time to discover who the child had become. It was time to find his home.


	2. Chapter 1

It took him a while to work his way out of Africa. He couldn’t risk a direct flight, there was visibility to consider. Better a moving target than a sitting duck, or whatever the Hellmouth equivalent of the cliché was. He knew he’d pissed off enough people in his travels over the last nine months – tin pot warlords, child soldiers, drug dealers, gun runners – it wasn’t only demons who seemed attracted to him. He’d come to the conclusion that he just attracted ‘Trouble’ with a capital ‘T’, like some other people attracted mosquitoes. It was funny how many capitalised words he’d collected over the last few years – ‘Slayer’, ‘Trouble’, in his own mind ‘Killer’. He guessed he’d add a few more to the collection before he was done.

A battered Land Rover got him from Abidjan on the Ivory Coast to the border with Mali, where a couple of cartons of contraband tobacco and a half-decent bottle of malt, paid for a hair-raising trip by an ancient crop duster to a small airfield outside Bamako. After he got off, his legs were shaking and he realised that the type of ‘dusting’ he was used to, was infinitely safer. When his breath returned to normal he hitched a ride with a convoy of Médicins Sans Frontières trucks, as far as Nouadhibou on the coast of Mauritania. They were going all the way through to Haswa, near the top of the Western Sahara, which would take him so much closer to his ultimate goal in Morocco, but he didn’t want to endanger them any further than their work already did by staying with them too long. So he left them and signed himself on as a deck hand on an old tramp steamer, which took him round the coast. He worried about pirates, but he worried more about the food the cook came up with, after he came to the conclusion that his fourth bout of sickness had nothing to do with the sea. The final leg was a series of bizarre hops by bus, camel and rental car, through to Tangier, the relative safety of an anonymous commercial flight to Amsterdam and a final long, tiring haul across the Atlantic that ended in the dizzying chaos of Chicago O’Hare. All the tickets were bought with used bills that had already passed through dozens of hands before him and, while the extra caution might have been unnecessary, he breathed easier with every layer of transaction and confusion he created. He was probably being paranoid, but after the best part of a year travelling through Africa, and seven years before that on the Hellmouth, he firmly believed that they were out to get him. And there was another one of the little fuckers – ‘They’ with a capital ‘T’.

That was part of the reason for the journey. They had been controlling his life for far too long and it was time to take it back. First his parents, before he knew there were scarier things to worry about than his Dad ripping through his pay cheque on a three-day holiday weekend bender. Then there were the bullies and jocks who’d made his life miserable, until he discovered that his mouth was a weapon in its own right. Guiltily he included Willow in his list – he loved her like a sister, apart from that one spell of madness in senior year, but over the months of separation he’d recognised the way she’d shaped him to her liking over the length of their long friendship and he wondered, tiredly, what she’d think of the man that he’d become. He continued his litany with a fleeting mental picture of Flutie, Snyder and a host of other teachers – some well meaning but ineffectual, some uninterested and some down-right twisted. They were meant to help him and mould him and watch him grow, but they only succeeded in making him feel like so much seed scattered on fallow ground. Buffy and Giles brought change and another dimension to his life. The trouble in their case was that the expression was literal. The fact that there were demon dimensions to worry about, on top of the newly discovered vampires, werewolves, ghosts, mummies and other assorted things that spent most of his high school years trying to eat him, or on occasion date him, was enough to send him screaming for the nearest bottle of bourbon, if he hadn’t known his father would have got there first.

These were the ‘they’ of his formative years, just like the more shadowy figures pulling the puppet strings of persecution and power, were the ‘they’ of his recent past. That was why he needed to escape Africa and find his own way. He was tired of dancing to other peoples’ tunes and expectations. Some folk, and he shied away from particular names, would accuse him of being selfish, but as he got off the plane in Chicago and sat on the hard bench trying to work out the easiest way to get to North Dakota, he reaffirmed the fledging thought, first nourished in the hot central clay plains of the Sudan when he held the body of Dafina in his arms and began to doubt his calling. It was time to set aside ‘They’ and focus on ‘I’. Perhaps, even more important, to focus on why?


	3. Chapter 2

Xander had been on a lot of shitty modes of transportation over the years, from his skateboard, to Uncle Rory’s special; Giles’ old Citroen, to the ancient tramp steamer of recent memory. And how could he forget the particularly spiteful camel in Marrakech! But he’d take the dromedary express over the US Greyhound service any day. Nineteen hours on a coach was one way to get to know your fellow man better, but by the time Xander staggered off the bus, about fifty miles short of Bismarck, North Dakota, he had severe thoughts of finding the nearest monastery with a vow of silence and becoming a monk. He’d even deal with the vow of celibacy, if it was needed. Since he’d had his initial one-on-one with Faith back in high school he’d always found sex was an easy way to block out the distractions of the day, but the last nine months hadn’t exactly been fruitful and he didn’t see that changing any time soon.

“Are you sure you want to get off here, son?” It was a long time since anyone had called him son, but the bus driver, with his weather-beaten face and teeth stained with chewing tobacco, sounded genuinely worried.

“Sure, I’m fine.” Xander reassured him. “Thanks for the concern. I’m going to hitch from here. It’ll be good to get my legs moving after being cooped up for so long. You have a good journey, the rest of the way.”

“You too, son. Watch yourself out here. I’ve been driving this route on and off for ten years or so - bunch of good-for-nothings live around here, if you ask me. Not that you’re asking, but that’s some advice for free. I wouldn't stay long if I were you.”

“Thanks pops, I’ll bear that in mind.” Xander watched as the driver nodded, pushed the big gear lever into drive and pressed the button to close the door, all in one easy, practiced movement. The hiss as the door shut, smacked of finality and he stood at the side of the road as the bus moved off and swung sharply to the left on the empty crossroads, heading for the city and a new set of passengers. He watched until the sun glinting on metal was just a speck on the horizon and then hoisted his old, battered duffle onto his shoulder, pulled his shades down over his eyes, patch and all, and started to walk.

He’d been walking for close to an hour, stopping only to have a slug of water, every so often, when a pick-up went by, slowed down for a long look and finally pulled over to the side of the road and stopped, about one hundred yards ahead. It wasn’t the first vehicle to pass; a few had even slowed slightly, but he guessed that one look at his shabby jeans, faded t-shirt and old denim jacket, topped off by a pair of mirrored shades, with the edge of a battered eye patch bizarrely sticking out of the bottom, was enough to frighten anyone away. Add to the mix, a mop of shaggy brown hair that looked like it could have used a good cut about six months back, and he really didn’t blame people for not stopping. But whoever was driving the pick-up wasn’t deterred by his looks, or maybe they were going to mess with the head of the one-eyed freak and wait until he got close, before driving off with a hoot and a holler. If Xander went by his usual luck, they were probably a psychopathic serial killer waiting to have him star in their own little horror movie. But that was the chance you took when you went hitching in North Dakota, not that he’d ever say that to the locals!

Drawing parallel to the back of the truck, he put his duffle down on the ground, shoved his shades up onto his forehead and approached the driver’s side, his hands empty and visible to the eyes watching him in the side mirror. Stopping, he looked in at the driver, smiled and tried to appear as unthreatening as possible, while he assessed his potential good Samaritan. The man at the wheel could have been anything from thirty-five to fifty-five. He had one of those faces that probably looked lived-in by the time he was eighteen. Xander had seen enough of the same look in Africa to recognise it on sight. He sometimes wondered if other people saw that same expression on his face, but he’d always been too wary to ask. The thought flitted through his mind in an instant before he quashed it and continued his mental catalogue. The man’s hair was black, with just a hint of silver flecking through the long braid which hung between his shoulders. A much washed, North Dakota Bisons team t-shirt covered a well defined chest and shoulders and a heavy, scarred, brown leather belt was pulled tight at the waist of tattered cut-offs, which looked as comfortable as they were faded. That was as far as he could see through the window but he was pretty sure that if he moved closer and looked down, he’d see either a pair of ancient sneakers or beaten up work boots. At this early stage, it was difficult to make the call.

Xander realised, as he finished his inventory, that curious blue eyes were going through the same procedure with him and they both grinned suddenly, in recognition of the mutual appraisal. “Okay, now that we’ve got the inspection over with, we can get to the introductions. I’m Joseph, but my friends call me Joe.”

“Xander, short for Alexander, but if you call me that, I’ll know you’re not my friend.”

“Xander it is, then. Where are you headed, Xander? There’s not much around here to be headed for, and if you’re headed for Bismarck, I hate to tell you, you’ve got a bit turned around.”

Xander shook his head. “Nah, not really one for cities. I’m aiming for Elk River. Can you take me a bit along the way?”

Xander saw Joe’s eyes widen at the place name before he answered. “Sure, I can take you. Headed that way myself.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but then bit his lip slightly and jerked his head towards the back of the truck. “Sling your stuff in the back and hop in. It’s about another 45 minute drive, so you might as well get out of the sun.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Xander turned and strode back to pick up his duffle, swinging it up into the open bed of the truck. He walked round the back end and up the passenger side, finding the door already open. Easing into the seat, he stretched his legs in front of him and shoved his shades higher up on top of his head. Even without looking, he could tell Joe was trying not to stare at the eye patch, but nothing was said, so Xander just smiled and fastened the mangled piece of webbing which was the nearest thing the ancient truck had to a seatbelt. “Thanks again. I thought I was going to have to walk the whole way. I was getting bored with my own company - there’s only so much unintelligent conversation I can have with myself.”

Joe grinned and shook his head. “Like I said, no problem. It’s not the busiest road in the state and most folk just drive through and keep going. I’m sure you’d have got a ride eventually, although I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been ten minutes out from where you’re headed, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. I’ll take any hospitality I can get, however late in the day." Joe nodded like that was the answer he’d expected, eased the old truck into drive and started off down the road.

The next half hour was spent mostly in companionable silence, despite Xander’s previous, self deprecating remark about the lack of decent conversation. The journey was punctuated only by the odd desultory comment about the standard of driving prowess of the very few people coming in the other direction. It seemed like the more space you gave people to drive on, the more they wanted to drive as close to you as they possibly could. Xander had seen the same phenomena all over Africa and he’d learned not to let it bother him, so he just slid further down into his seat, getting as comfortable as possible. He felt surprisingly relaxed and it was only his Hellmouth and Africa training that stopped him from being lulled into a seductive sleep by the hypnotic rumble of the old truck on the cracked black top. He rested his right arm casually along the sill of the open window, his fingers occasionally tapping out a rhythm in time to whatever radio station faded in and out, courtesy of the twisted radio aerial. When he shifted slightly in his seat he could feel the ever present stake pressing into his hip, through the worn denim of his jeans. He wondered if he was prepared for whatever lay ahead.

Xander stiffened when Joe slowed the truck at an intersection and he noticed a faded wooden sign pointing up to the left. The words, Elk River were visible, in peeling black letters. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Joe glance at him for a moment and then signal the left turn, before guiding the old truck across the road and onto a metalled track. To say that it had seen better days would be a gross understatement. Pot holes and washed out gravel peppered the surface and as the truck started to bounce up the track Xander was reminded briefly of some of the carnivals he had gone to with Jesse, years before, where they had dared each other to go on the most stomach churning ride. 

His eyes slid sideways towards Joe, who was looking steadfastly at the track ahead. “Guess it was just as well I decided to leave the new wheels at home, huh?”

“Foresight is a great gift.” The words were lightly said, but somehow they hung in the air and Xander felt a shiver crawl up his spine, and from the look Joe shot his way before turning his eyes back to the track, it was if the older man felt it too.

The truck bounced on for another ten minutes and then up a steep incline, before Joe slowed to a rolling stop. The ground dropped sharply away below, with the track hugging the edge of the hills all the way down to the valley floor. A small river meandered along the bottom and on its banks Xander could see wooden houses, cars, a few horses and several larger buildings, which might have been stores and possibly a school. He could feel his hands start to bunch at his sides and he forced himself to relax and take a deep breath.

After a moment he was aware that Joe had given up any pretence of not watching him and he turned his head towards the inevitable questions. “Xander, if you don’t mind me asking, what do you want in Elk River? It’s not exactly on the tourist map, even if some folk would like it to be.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly a tourist. Or at least, I hope I’m not. I’m looking for traces of someone who I think might be my great grandfather. He might have been born here, I’m not sure. His name was Francis Redfeather.”


	4. Chapter 3

Xander watched intently as Joe took a short, sharp breath, obviously startled by the answer to his question. He could almost see the moment when the older man regained his equilibrium and returned Xander’s steady gaze. “That’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.”

He waited as Joe seemed to debate with himself, like he was gauging how much to say, and after a moment’s silence he couldn’t bear the wait any longer. There was a Hellmouth-born voice at the back of his head which seemed to whisper that it was weird to have struck pay dirt this early in his search, but he stamped on it hard, too elated and curious to question his good luck. “But you have heard it?”

“Once or twice,” Joe shrugged, apparently unconcerned by the look on Xander’s face. “When I was a kid, mainly. It doesn’t mean it was the same person, though. It’s funny how names you think are unique turn up in unexpected places.”

Xander nodded, acknowledging the truth of Joe’s comment. “Right enough. I met another Alexander Harris in the middle of the Sudan. He didn’t have the ‘Lavelle’ going for him, so that was something to be grateful for. It was kind of weird, like running into your evil twin or something.”

He watched as Joe nodded, like this was the kind of conversation he had every day. “The Sudan is a long way from Elk River.”

Smiling wryly, Xander returned the nod. “I can’t argue with that and it also provides the perfect subject for a diversion, even though I fed you the line.”

He shrugged at the results of his own butterfly mind, but the conversation was too important to get lost in sideways thoughts so he slapped himself mentally round the head and redirected his attention as Joe replied. “You got me there. So, Francis Redfeather - I used to hear some of the elders mention the name, occasionally, when I was a boy. Usually when I was meant to be asleep and I had crept out to our gathering place, to listen to the old men swap tales.” Xander watched curiously as Joe closed his eyes, seemingly lost for a moment in a childhood memory, before opening them again and rubbing absently at the back of his neck. “You know how kids are. I was always sticking my nose in places where it didn’t belong.”

Sticking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, Xander slouched farther down in the seat and nodded. “Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. So I guess the $64,000 question is – is it worth me asking about the name in Elk River? Will anyone else remember something which might help? Or maybe I should say, will anyone be willing to talk to me? God knows you’re taking a lot on trust, even taking me this far.”

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the drumming of Joe’s fingers on the steering wheel. Xander counted to ten, along with the beat, and then waited as the sound slowed and finally stopped, like a decision had been reached between one beat and the next. “Tell you what?” said Joe. “You’ve come this far and I guess you could do with a break. Come and meet my wife, Cora. She’ll fix us up with something to eat and you can tell me a bit more about why you’re looking. Maybe then, I can be a bit more help.”

The temptation of a home cooked meal almost overtook Xander’s natural caution; he paused for a moment, studying Joe’s face, turning the words and tone over in his head, but could find only honesty and curiosity. Finally he answered. “That sounds like too good a deal to miss – company, home cooking and a little bit of bartering for information; I can live with that.”

Joe started the engine again and eased the old truck down the incline, towards the village that was beginning to take more obvious form, the closer they got. The houses and other buildings were constructed in a rough horseshoe shape and the tactician in Xander nodded approvingly in his head at the sound defence line created by the river bend. A small wooden bridge spanned the river and, as they bumped across, he could see the debris of children’s play, scattered across the grass next to the water; a baseball bat, a girls bike and a basket ball, abandoned perhaps, for the allure of something more exciting, like supper, or more pedestrian, like bedtime – both markers of a normal childhood day. The truck turned right, onto a narrow, sealed road which ran between the main buildings and Xander couldn’t help looking over at Joe in surprise. “Now you pave the road? My back could have done with that a mile or so back!”

Joe grinned unrepentantly. “It’s surprising how many people turn tail when they think they’re going to ruin the suspension on their hire car. We can’t be upsetting Mr Hertz just for the sake of a bit of tourist rubbernecking.”

Xander snorted. “And I thought I was cynical!”

“Not cynical, just realistic. This isn’t Disneyland. Folk can’t just put us back in the box once they’ve finished playing. Anyway, don’t get me started or we’ll be out here all night. Give me a minute to oil the wheels and then I’ll come and get you, once I’ve warned Cora that we’ll be one extra for dinner.”

“I don’t want to be a bother.” He ducked his head, hating to sound so needy, but the child that he had been still worried about putting people to any trouble, and what the price of a favour could be in the future.

When he looked back up, Joe sat, his head tilted to the side like he was trying to read Xander’s thoughts. After the briefest moment he shook his head and grinned crookedly. “It’s no bother. I get the feeling you might just be the most interesting thing that’s happened in Elk River for quite a time.”

Xander snorted again before turning it into a laugh and the awkwardness of a moment before vanished like a puff of smoke. “Why am I not getting the warm and fuzzies from that?”

“Because you are a cautious man, Xander Harris. Even on this short acquaintance, I can tell that.” Joe slapped him companionably on the arm and opened the truck door. Before Xander could think of a suitable reply, his host was striding down a gravel path at right angles to the truck, towards a neat wooden cottage with a black door. Xander watched him pause on the threshold and glance back, as if he was half expecting his guest to have taken the opportunity to run. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, Joe pushed open the front door and disappeared into the shady gloom of the house beyond.

As he waited, Xander rubbed one hand up and down his thigh, clasping and unclasping the outline of the stake hidden by the worn denim. The action seemed to soothe his brain and help him to focus and think. He wasn’t quite sure when the mannerism had started, but he had been conscious of it since at least Slayer number three and it had possibly been unconscious before that. As the fingers bunched, and flexed, and smoothed, he tried to decide what he was going to say to the inevitable questions to come. The questions he had set himself up for by starting on this road in the first place. He inwardly cursed the offhand remark about the Sudan because, after all his care, Africa was now connected to him. He guessed that it was probably a measure of how remarkably relaxed he felt with Joe, after such a short time, but still, it was an amateur mistake and he could only hope it was one that would pass off without too much remark.

As far as questions and answers were concerned, Slayers, obviously, were taboo, as was the supernatural, although he could almost hear Willow in his head, lecturing about Native American beliefs and culture and an openness to the fact that myths have a basis in truth. If he ignored the magical syphilis, and wasn’t that was a thought only a Hellmouth boy could have, he knew that the reality probably lay somewhere in the hinterlands between the stereotype of a thousand Hollywood movies and the starry-eyed view of Willow’s world, and that was okay. He was comfortable with the ambiguity of the middle ground and when he came to form his own opinions he’d try to do it with experience, and understanding, and nothing else. That was his hope, underpinned by an unspoken longing that perhaps, at some point, he could talk about his real life without being told he was crazy, but that was for sometime in an undetermined future. For now there were a few good cover stories he’d used before, which would fit the bill, mainly to do with refugee work, because god know, he’d built enough field hospitals and feeding stations on his travels. The tragedy was that they were usually dismantled as soon as he and the peace keepers left. There were so many times when he wanted to stay, to carry on helping and trying to make a difference, but in the end, the call of the Slayers always came first, so he’d stored that slice of guilt with the other monsters, in the closet with the padlock on the door.

Apart from some obfuscation about Africa, if the subject came up, which of course it would, he knew that he could stick close to the truth. Somehow it seemed important that he do so. His name was Xander Harris from Sunnydale, California and he was searching for a tangible sign of a man who only existed in his dreams and in a tattered and faded sepia photograph secreted in the back compartment of his ancient leather wallet. Xander owed Joe as much honesty as he could offer, in return for his kindness, but he owed the man in the picture as much truth as he knew. He could only hope that somehow he would find the balance for himself, somewhere in the no man’s land between the two.


	5. Chapter 4

Xander let his mind drift while he waited for Joe to come back. He still wasn’t sure what exactly he expected to find in Elk River. Yes, he wanted answers to some questions about the man in the photograph, but he knew there was more to it than that. He’d been searching for something, even before the confrontation with his last Slayer. He’d been looking for a reason to go on, to continue with the fight. He wanted a reason to keep standing and keep struggling, even though there was a voice in his head which had haunted him since those dark days in Africa, telling him to stop, that he had done enough and no-one could ask for any more. When all was said and done, he wanted to do what was right; it was in his soul and his heart, and had been since he was sixteen. But his weariness had turned to hopelessness and he knew that somehow he hoped for an answer and a cause and he was torn between the need to find something that would give him permission to stop and the lure of something that would give him the motivation to keep on fighting. 

His mind wandered, free-falling as he sifted through a slideshow of memories of Sunnydale and Africa and the long journey to now, and although it could only have been a few minutes, he felt like he’d been daydreaming for hours when Joe reappeared and shouted for him to come in. He opened the truck door and creakily hauled himself out onto the roadside, the long hours on the Greyhound still making themselves felt in his muscles and joints. He debated whether getting his duffle from the back of the truck looked presumptuous, considering Joe had only offered him a meal, but in the end caution won out; he didn’t know these people and he didn’t know the territory, so he wanted his kit close to hand, just in case. Joe had said Xander was a cautious man and he was right.

If Joe thought about the implications of Xander and the duffle, it didn’t show in his face, as far as Xander could tell. He watched impassively as Xander hauled the bag over his shoulder and made his way down the neat path towards the door.

“Cora says she hopes you like rabbit. My cousin was out hunting yesterday and had himself a successful day, by all accounts.”

“Sounds wonderful. Real food after truck stop burgers can only be good.”

He followed Joe out of the sunlight and into the dim hall. The walls were painted with ochre and sky blue and the terracotta floor tiles made both their footfalls echo in the small space. “You can leave your bag here.” Xander hesitated for a moment and Joe smiled like he was reading Xander’s mind. “Don’t worry; no one’s going to steal it.” Xander felt himself blush at the comment and at how easy he was to read for this almost-stranger who felt more like a friend he’d known for years. “You can wash up, if you like, and then come on through. By that time Cora should have dinner ready to go.”

Placing his bag carefully against the wall, out of the way, Xander looked back up at Joe, troubled by the man’s easy acceptance of the situation. “Joe, I really don’t know why you’re being so good to me. I’m just a hitcher you picked up. Didn’t you ever see the movie?”

“I remember catching it on a late night rerun one night. I had a thing for Jennifer Jason Leigh for years. Seriously though, you looked like you needed some help. In my family, we don’t turn our backs on someone who needs help. It’s as simple as that. So go wash up and then come on through and meet Cora”

Xander stayed in the tiny washroom for as long as he could, without seeming impolite. He rinsed his hands and face, straightened his eye patch and dragged his fingers through his unruly hair in an attempt to make himself a little more presentable. Finally, knowing it was a lost cause, he squared his shoulders, left the washroom and headed the short distance down the hallway to the only unexplored door, which stood partially ajar.

Pushing the door gently open, he found himself in a small living area – two chairs by an old, cast iron, potbellied stove and an inglenook dining table laden with dishes which smelled more wonderful than anything he’d eaten in days. The window at the end of the room allowed sunlight to spill into the room, illuminating dark corners and making the whole feel inviting and lived in. A tall, narrow cabinet on the far wall, at right angles to the window, was crammed with a mixture of photographs and woodcarvings and he found himself wanting to touch the wood and follow the grain and the artistry of the carving. 

As he stood cataloguing his surroundings, a soft female voice broke through his reverie. “You’re welcome, Alexander. An unexpected guest is always an excitement to treasure. Please sit and eat. You can tell us your tale once other things have been taken care of.” 

Later Xander couldn’t have told anyone the details of the conversations during the meal – there was wary politeness and kindness and the sound of soft laughter. But the words didn’t seem important, not at that point. It was the company and the comfort in the silences, which didn’t beg to be filled, that he would always remember. That and the food, because some things needed to be cherished and the taste of Cora’s cooking was one of them. There was a memory of rich rabbit stew, redolent with herbs and wild garlic, with dumplings which reminded him of dishes he’d seen in the cookbooks that his mom had said belonged to his grandmother and which he was never allowed to touch. There was fresh bread that was perfect for dunking into the gravy and when Joe offered him a cold beer to go with the meal, he wasn’t going to turn it down. 

Most of all he remembered Cora. Dark hair and darker eyes, she seemed to dance around the room, serving and carrying, collecting and wiping, touching Joe’s shoulder or hand, or urging Xander to have another piece of bread, or more stew, or the sweet potato mash that made him think he’d died and gone to heaven. For all that, she wasn’t some idealised woman. She had lines on her face and streaks of grey in her hair and her shoulders were stooped, perhaps a little more than they should be, but despite the domestic scene Xander knew that he wasn’t seeing some drudge or dutiful wife. Cora was no stereotype, she was mistress of her house and of her kitchen and Joe, and by default his guest, knew their place.

As the meal drew to a close, Xander heard the front door open and close quietly and he tensed as footsteps echoed on the tiled floor. Cora and Joe seemed relaxed, so he tried to be the same, but remained watchful, just as his former job description required, until the door opened. An elderly man, perhaps seventy or so, entered the room. Like Joe, his hair was braided in a long tail, but there was no hint of black, just silver and shots of yellow that spoke of too long in the harsh heat of the sun.

Xander rose as the old man walked towards them. “I heard that Joe had brought a guest back with him, so I thought I should pay my respects and welcome you to our small community. I do not need to ask if Cora has fed you well; my daughter has many talents, but I have to say that over the years I have a marked fondness for her skill in the kitchen. My name is Jacob and you are Alexander, I believe. It is a good name.” Xander stilled as he wondered how Jacob knew his name, but before his Sunnydale trained brain could jump to the wrong conclusion, Jacob continued. “Cora phoned me to tell me she had a guest. I usually drop by in the evening and she did not want me to barge in and surprise you.” He glanced over at his daughter, smiling wryly. “For some reason she thinks I have no social graces.”

A snort from Cora drew Xander’s attention for a moment and should have lightened the atmosphere in the room, but staring at the old man, Xander struggled with the feeling that he was in the presence of power. He’d been around it long enough to recognise the prickling under his skin, but this was unlike anything he’d ever come across on the Hellmouth, or in all his travels, so he bit his tongue and waited as the old man continued. “I am interested in what could bring a young man from California all the way to Elk River? I enjoy a good story and a quest is always the most interesting of tales. I also have a weakness for my daughter’s coffee and I find it helps sharpen the senses and eases the passage of words.”

Despite the feeling that things were starting to slip out of his control, Xander found himself nodding and watched Cora pour coffee and settle the old man at the table, before seating herself down next to Joe. Three curious sets of eyes turned towards him and Xander squirmed in his seat for a moment, wondering what he was doing and where to start. But then he opened his mouth and the words that came out took the matter out of his hands. “I guess it started when I was about twelve. It was summer and I was rummaging in the attic, getting covered in cobwebs and dust and generally being a kid. I thought I’d explored that place from end to end over the years, covered every inch, knew every box and bag in the place. 

"It was hot and the air was stifling, but the skylight wouldn’t open. It had been painted shut years before when the outside of the house got a fresh coat of paint. I thought if I could get enough force on the catch I could break paint seal, but I wasn’t quite tall enough, so I dragged an old suitcase under the window and balanced on it, while I pushed hard at the window catch. After a few attempts it finally gave, so suddenly that I fell backwards on my ass onto the floor. Luckily there was no one else to see, but when I got to my knees I noticed an uneven floor board, which must have been covered up by where the suitcase usually sat. I was twelve, so of course I was convinced I’d found some secret treasure, or the start of a secret tunnel, or something.”

Cora’s voice was soft as the light from the lamp on the shelf behind her. “I’m guessing you did.”

Smiling faintly at her gentle interruption, he nodded. “I guess so.”

He didn’t know why it felt important to detail the movements that had led to the discovery, but in his head it was all part of the whole and he felt as if he’d be short changing the tale if he cut any corners. “I pulled at the floorboard, but it didn’t give up without a fight, as if it had taken lessons from the skylight. I fell on my ass another couple of times before it came loose. There was an old flashlight, which I kept by the attic door; my friend Jesse and I used to use it when we told each other ghost stories when we were younger.” 

He heard Jacob snort at the implication that twelve was somehow old, but he didn’t let it distract him. “There was still a little life left in the battery, even though it hadn’t been used in forever, but it was so faint, that at first I didn’t see anything under the floor. But when I got down on my front and squinted deeper into the dark, I caught a glimpse of metal shining in the torchlight. I had to stretch my arm full length under the floor, half scared I’d get bitten by a snake, or a rat, or something, but then my hand hit the corner of an old tin box. After a bit of scrabbling, I managed to hook my fingers round it and drag it towards me and out of the hole.” 

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling again how the old tin had felt under his small fingers – battered and pockmarked, like it had been thrown about or stamped on, but someone had still cared enough to hide it away, protecting it from whoever, or whatever. 

He opened his eyes again and his audience sat still watching and waiting for him to continue the story. “There was no lock on the box and it opened with just a little creak. There was a small silver locket with a photo inside it. It looked like my grandmother, as she might have appeared as a young woman. I’m guessing, because it was similar to one I once saw of my mom in a scrapbook she kept under the bed. There was also a small wooden doll with home-made clothes that had seen better days. Finally, there was the photo of a young man. Written on the back was a name – Francis Redfeather, a place – Elk River, and a date – 1929.

“Later that day I went downstairs and took it with me to ask my mom if it belonged to her, or if she knew anything about it. When she saw what I had she got mad and confiscated it. I never saw it again. I’d kept the photo separate for some reason. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to put it away again, to shut the man up with the doll and the locket, so I hid it in the drawer of my nightstand before I talked to mom. I don’t know if she knew I’d taken it, she never talked about it and I didn’t ask. The photograph stayed hidden for years, but whenever I moved, I always took it with me and found a new, secret home for it. It’s silly really; there was no need to hide it, once I had a place of my own, but it was a private thing, a kind of talisman I guess, and I’ve always felt the need to keep it safe and keep it secret.” 

Xander paused, noticing that the sunlight from the window at the end of the room had morphed into the deep orange glow that heralded the coming of sunset and the inevitable onset of darkness. He never got tired of the sight, no matter where in the world he was. Reluctantly, he dragged his gaze away from the window, realising with a strange mixture of relief and trepidation that his story was almost complete and there was only one last piece left to tell. 

"I sometimes dreamed of the young man, of him circling slowly around a campfire, of a beautiful young girl and occasionally, on the edge of the darkness, I would see a glimpse of something white, just out of reach and out of earshot. 

"For years I’ve wanted to find out more, but there was always something else to get in the way, so I just kept the photograph safe wherever I went. These last few months though, I’ve been dreaming more and more and I realised that I couldn’t put if off any longer. I travel a lot, so whenever I had access to a computer I started to dig with the little information I had – a name, a place and a date. Together with my mom’s reluctance to talk, the fact that the box was both hidden and damaged screamed family secret. I’m tired of dreams and cryptic clues and I’m tired of secrets. That’s why I’m here, to see if I can finally find some answers.”

He took a deep breath and looked at the faces watching him. Joe smiled encouragingly, as if Xander’s honesty had proved something he’d already known. Cora nodded slowly, as if she was honoured by the confidences and Jacob simply held his gaze for a moment before starting to speak. “Alexander, may I see the photograph?”

This was the reason he’d come to Elk River, and Xander noticed his hands were shaking slightly as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He flipped it open and carefully pulled out a snack-sized Ziploc bag from the back compartment. Opening the bag, he slipped out a small, sepia photograph. He brushed his thumb gently over the picture, before sliding it face up across the table towards Jacob, and watched the old man pick it up carefully and look at it for a long moment, before raising his eyes back to Xander. 

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said. "All coincidence is merely design in a form we don’t expect. I believe Joe was meant to pick you up today, just as Cora was meant to call on me. Which means, I too was meant to be here. Francis Redfeather was my half-brother. We shared a father. If he is your great grandfather then, by default, that makes you family, here in Elk River.


	6. Chapter 5

Darkness had fallen and Jacob was gone, leaving with promises to return in the morning to talk further. He had joked wryly about old men needing their sleep after so much excitement and exhorted Cora and Joe not to keep their guest up too late. His comment reminded Xander that he hadn’t made arrangements for somewhere to crash, but as he was wondering if he had the nerve to beg Joe for a ride to the Super8 he’d seen back on the highway, Joe appeared with his duffle in one hand and a flashlight in the other and Xander felt the question die on his lips.

“Are you going to stand there with your mouth flapping like a fish,” Joe said, “or do you want to see our top class accommodation?” A grin accompanied the question and an expansive gesture with the flashlight indicated the door in the far bottom corner of the room. “We haven’t got the luxury of a guest bedroom, but I’ve got a shed out back as my work room and there’s a hammock I sometimes sleep in, if I get in late.”

“Or if he’s in the doghouse!” Cora leaned against the kitchen table, her arms folded against her chest like she was about to deliver a lecture, but Xander noticed that her eyes shone as she teased her husband.

“Or if I’m in the doghouse”, Joe agreed easily, with a wink for both his wife and their guest.

“Joe, I couldn’t…I mean I can’t…you shouldn’t have to…” His protests were well meant and genuine, even if he had suddenly lost the ability to speak in complete sentences, but he already knew that he’d mentally caved, half way through dinner. Staying hadn’t even been slated for discussion at that point, but the ease with which he’d relaxed in their company made the little voice at the back of brain, which had whispered warnings to him all through Africa and the Hellmouth years, grow quieter and finally fade out. He was still cautious; one great rabbit stew didn’t make him lose his common sense, but intuition and experience told him that he could relax here, at least for one night, and that the offer of hospitality was genuine. So he would stay – for one night, perhaps for two or three or maybe more, at this point he wasn’t sure. The little voice woke up briefly, whispering that he needed somewhere to rest, to put down roots and just live, and maybe finding family was a sign that somewhere there was a place where that could really happen. ‘Home’ - the voice was like Salomé, dancing with her seven veils, tempting and teasing, but Xander shook his head, stamping on the idea before it could take root and grow. This was day one, and he had no idea what would happen, even twenty four hours ahead. ‘Home’ was a concept that he couldn’t even begin to think about, never mind capitalise. It was far, far too early for that.

He lay, swinging gently in the darkness, with every twitch and shift of his muscles, as the long journey across Africa and Atlantic, by plane and boat, Greyhound and beaten up truck, finally began to melt away. Turning the events of the day and evening over in his mind, he kept circling back to Jacob’s words about family. ‘Family’, it all came down to that one word. It was a concept he’d shied away from when he was growing up, although if he was being honest, he’d admit that getting through his childhood years had been as much about spiting his family as anything else, so he guessed that made them important, in a crazy, warped logic kind of a way. Then he’d created his own family and they had sustained him for a while, but they too were dysfunctional in their own unique way. Now, the idea that there was another stage to family potentially waiting for him, one that had always been there and which bridged the past and unknown future, was almost dizzying with the possibility that perhaps he could add the word to his growing list of capitalised words. ‘Family’. The thought was shocking, alluring and somehow terrifying. He let the word whisper seductively in his mind as he swung in the darkness and drifted off to sleep. For the first time since Africa, he didn’t dream.

The smell of coffee lured Xander back to the surface and as he blinked sleepily, he noticed that daylight had crept through the cracks around the door and through the slats in the old wooden blind over the window. He started to catalogue the room in a way he’d been too tired to do, the night before – workbench, tools, ladders, old tins of paint – all the things you’d expect to find in a guy's workroom. He knew that he was only giving the place a cursory scan, but the smell of the coffee was too enticing and the continuing silence of his warning bells told him that he would have time for a better look round his surroundings, once other, more pressing needs had been addressed. He turned his head to the right, seeing Joe sipping from an insulated mug, noting that the man had chosen to stand on his good side. 

Stretching and making the hammock swing slightly, he smiled at his host. “I hope you have another cup of that somewhere close by, because standing there, taunting me, could be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Laughing, Joe bent down, picked up a second mug, which was resting on the floor at his feet and slowly straightened up, holding the mug just out of reach. “This is the carrot, now you just have to haul yourself out of bed to get it.”

Xander rolled his eye, surprised again at the ease he felt with the man, and hoisted himself out of the hammock. “I know I should be worried about the stick, but at the moment, I’ll worship at the feet of the great god ‘caffeine’ and worry about the rest later.” Joe laughed again as Xander inhaled the aroma of the coffee appreciatively, before taking a large swallow, groaning in pleasure as he did so. 

“I guess Cora’s got herself another coffee slave,” said Joe.

“Oh yeah!” Xander’s reply was muffled as he continued to bury his nose in the coffee cup. “You know you’re not going to get rid of me now.”

Joe shook his head. “You’ll have to get in line. She’s practically got a harem, all worshipping her coffee making skills.”

“So does that make you chief concubine?”

“That’s one way of putting it. Finish your coffee, get dressed and come on over to the house for breakfast. You know where the washroom is, so take your time. Jacob will be over in a while and we can talk some more.”

***********************

Washing up and eating breakfast - just two normal functions that you go through every day. You don’t think about them, they’re just there, like breathing. But now that both mundane actions were over, Xander realised that he’d been sleepwalking through both. Cora and Joe were as welcoming as the night before, but Xander knew he was going through the motions of talking and eating and saying please and thank you, and as he looked up from his coffee cup and saw Cora watching him, he knew that they knew it too. She walked over to him, holding the coffee pot and topped up his mug, before turning to her father who had arrived while Xander was polishing off the last piece of bread. 

“I’m guessing I could tempt you to a cup?” She had one hand on her hip and the coffee pot poised over an empty cup, as she looked down at her father. There was a faint smile hovering on her lips and the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes crinkled even further. Xander realised that he was watching a ritual that had been repeated many times over the years.

He continued to watch as Jacob looked up at her quizzically. “Well it would be rude for a guest to ignore the offer of such kindness, so I’ll say yes.”

“Just to be polite.” The crinkles became even more pronounced as she fought back a laugh.

“But of course.” Jacob winked at Xander as Cora snorted and poured a large cup for her father, before crossing back across the small kitchen and sliding into a seat next to Joe.

There was silence for a moment, as Xander sipped his coffee meditatively, and then he looked up at Jacob expectantly. He was eager to hear what the old man had to say, but he didn’t want to appear any more pushy than he already had, which in Xander’s mind was quite a bit. So he forced himself to stay quiet, until Jacob placed his cup carefully down on the table in front of him and took a deep breath. “You’ve come a long way for this story. Longer perhaps, than most of us have travelled, except in our dreams. It is your right to hear this story as we know it. I cannot tell you if it is what happened, as I only know it as I was told, but I believe it to be true. I also cannot tell you the outcome, because the fact that you are here in Elk River tells me the story has not yet reached its conclusion. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Xander paused for a moment before replying, “I do.” He weighed the phrase on his tongue and in his head. Once he’d run rather than say those words, but now he felt their import and the commitment that lay behind them. 

He drew breath, watching as Jacob inclined his head and he felt like he’d passed some kind of test as the old man continued, “My father was a somber man. He thought deeply and laughed seldom, but when he did, the whole community would join in his joy. He married his first wife at eighteen and, like all boys of that age, he considered himself a man and ready to face this adventure of life. Her name was Katherine. They were children together and their parents were pleased when they were married. Katherine was quickly pregnant and it is said that my father smiled a lot in the early months. But she was fragile and as the months passed by, she grew more so, and my father stopped smiling. She died in childbirth, giving up her life for Francis, leaving my father behind, so that she could pass onwards to meet her ancestors. He could have taken comfort in that thought, but in his grief he would not be comforted and his sorrow consumed him for the longest time. The memory of our families is a long one and tales of sadness and joy are passed down, generation to generation, so that we may learn from the past and celebrate the future. But in that time my father could not celebrate, he saw only his own pain. He did not blame his son for Katherine’s death, but he could not communicate his grief to a boy who’d never known his mother.”

There was silence in the room, as Jacob paused to take another sip of his coffee, and Xander dropped his gaze to the wooden table top, trying to picture Francis growing up with a father who was too trapped in death to care for the new life that was in front of him. A fleeting picture of Buffy in a black dress, pressed against the wall of an alley, her eyes empty and lost, flashed through his mind and he felt a sudden empathy for both the father and the son. Shivering, he looked back up to find Jacob watching him over the rim of his coffee cup, his eyes knowing, like he’d been reading Xander’s thoughts. 

Jacob took one last mouthful of coffee and returned the cup to the table before continuing his tale. “I do not know much about Francis’ childhood. Growing up, I didn’t ask, because I didn’t know I had an older brother, and when I finally found out, there were many more things I wanted to know than what games he liked to play as a child. But I know that he was sixteen when he left Elk River. It seemed that he pulled at the restraints and the rules that governed the reservation and wondered what the outside world had to offer, like many young men before him. It is sad in a way that Francis was so like my father in that respect, so desperate to be a man and make his mark. For a time my father added Francis’ leaving to the grief of losing Katherine and it was not until many years later that his load was lightened when Anna came into his life and he finally began to laugh again. I am biased, of course, as she was my mother and I am the product of their joy.”

“What age was your father when he remarried?” Somehow, asking about something so personal made Xander feel slightly embarrassed, but he was trying to build a timeline in his head, something that would give a context and history to his search. Jacob seemed unfazed by the interruption or the nature of the question.

“He was thirty eight. She was twenty one, old to still be single in that time, but she was strong willed and knew her own mind. It is a trait in our family. The story goes that she courted my father through her late teenage years and the rest of the community laughed because he was unaware, for the longest time, of her purpose. But finally he saw her as a woman and not as the child he had known. Then he opened his heart. 

Jacob paused and smiled at Cora, who was sitting beside Joe, their shoulders just touching, and then he turned back towards Xander. “I could sit and talk all day about my mother, about her smile and her temper and her ability to make my father do the things he didn’t want to do. I could talk about my own Katherine; it was a bitter sweet coincidence that I feel in love with someone of that name. I could talk about Cora who makes me feel both old and young whenever I come to see her. These are all things I can speak about with certainty and a clear head, and one day we will take the time to do so. But now you wish to know about Francis, and how he went from a motherless son on a reservation to a faded photograph, hidden in the attic.

Realising that he had been holding his breath as he listened to Jacob, Xander forced himself to breathe in slowly before replying. “Can you tell me that?” he asked.

“I can tell you many things, Alexander. Whether they are what you want to hear, is one thing I cannot tell, but you have already accepted my caution, so we will continue and you can make up your own mind”


	7. Chapter 6

“Francis travelled the length of many states in that first, lonely year, picking up work wherever he could. It was the start of the great depression and jobs were hard to come by and, like many others in that dark time, he swallowed his pride and did anything that would put food in his mouth and keep him going for another day. Being a young Native American only made it harder, facing ignorance and prejudice every day, and it says a lot about his strength of character that he persevered and survived.”

Listening to Jacob made Xander realise that, for all his knowledge about demons and vampires and the things that go bump in the night, he had little understanding of the history of his own country. He had so many questions in his head, clamouring for attention, but he settled in the end for the one at the forefront of his mind. “Why didn’t he come back to the reservation? At least he would have been with family.”

Jacob shook his head. “Things were no better here than they were in the wider world. This community struggled for survival, though perhaps our culture and our history of having to survive, helped us through. I said that Francis had strength of character, but I should also have said that he was stubborn, just like his father – my father. He couldn’t have come back to Elk River with his tail between his legs, it was not in his nature, so he kept moving forward and forged his own path.”

Xander had a sudden picture in his head of a young, dark haired man, with a pack on his back, walking down a dusty road and for a brief moment he couldn’t work out if he was picturing Francis in his imagination or flashing to a memory of his own endless journeys in Africa. He rubbed his hand over the edge of his eye patch, trying to clear the image and pulled his attention back to Jacob as the old man continued his story.

“I’m not sure what would have happened to him if he hadn’t met Rebecca. Stubbornness can help sustain a man’s existence, but loneliness will eat away at his soul, until the only thing keeping him going is the need not to fail. But he was lucky, or fated, it is impossible to say, but I believe the latter to be true. He was working on a farm in Indiana. He was young and fit and had found a place where the farmer believed that a strong pair of arms was more important that man’s heritage or the shade of his skin. Rebecca was the farmer’s youngest daughter, a tomboy who was always out in the fields, getting in the way and asking questions. She was curious about Francis, about his background and his life and why he’d left his home and his family behind. She wanted to know about his culture and his beliefs and gradually, over time, they became friends. Like her father, Rebecca saw the man and not the label, and after two years of dancing around each other they were married. I’m not saying it was easy and that her family was happy with their relationship, for all their tolerance, but it was obvious that Rebecca would have her way, whatever her family thought, so there was nothing to do but make the best of it.” Jacob paused, taking a sip of his coffee and looking at Xander across the rim, his eyes crinkling with laughter. “You will find that the history of this family is a history of strong women. They drive us forward, to do the things that we must do, and we men are attracted to them like moths to a flame.”

Xander’s lips twitched as he thought back on the women in his own life. Strong didn’t begin to cover it and Jacob was right, they were sirens singing to his heart, to his cock, and he was powerless when they called. Even his mother, so tattered and frayed through his childhood, had her own kind of strength. She could have turned her back on her son and her husband and tried to find her own life, but she hadn’t. She’d stayed and done what she could. It wasn’t much and she often faltered at the challenge, but she had tried and for that he had to admire her, even as the thought saddened him. 

He pulled his mind back to the present and returned Jacob’s gaze, thinking about the image of his great grandfather and the farmer’s daughter when a thought occurred to him. “One thing that confuses me is how you know all this. From what you’ve said, I get the impression that Francis never came back to Elk River, or is that not true? How do know what happened to him in those years before you were born?” 

Jacob placed his coffee cup carefully back on the wooden table and nodded his head. “A good question. A good listener should always have questions. I have said that my father was a solemn man and that is true, but he did love Francis, even though he could not say the words. He kept tokens, mementoes of Francis’ childhood in a wooden chest in the corner of the room. When I got old enough to be curious, I looked and then asked about them. That’s how I learned I had a brother – a brother I’d never met. There was a photograph, wrapped in a worn piece of deer skin, at the bottom of the box. It was almost identical to the one you found in your attic. That was how I first knew what my brother looked like and I knew that I needed to see him face to face. So when I was old enough, I went looking and I found him. I found them and that is how I know this story. Because he told me.”

“Francis used to write to my, to our, father from time to time, perhaps once a year. I remember when the letters would come they would sit untouched for days sometimes, before they were opened and read. Our father would sometimes disappear for many hours and I always wondered what he was thinking about, whether he was thinking about the son he’d lost, or the wife he’d mourned, or the family he now had. When I was younger I used to ask about the letters, but my mother would tell me not to pester him and to respect his privacy. But as I grew up he became more open, as if he did not want to tread the same path of mistakes he had made with Francis. My mother encouraged him to talk when he was ready and gradually I learned about my brother as my father remembered him – proud, stubborn and eager to see what was out there in the world.

“I was eighteen when I went in search of him. Two years older than he had been when he set out on his adventure. I was both excited and terrified and I could only image how he must have felt at that time.”

“How did you know where to start?”

“The letters – my father would never let me read them – but he understood my need to learn about family, to absorb and learn from our history and he gave me the names of the places mentioned in the letters. He had obviously moved around, but the letters gave me a kind of road map of my brother’s journey and they gave me a place to start.

“So I took my father’s blessings and I left my home behind, like my brother before me. I left my home behind and went in search of the past, in the hope of understanding a future that was yet to be formed.”


	8. Chapter 7

Morning had faded into early afternoon as Jacob spoke and Xander was conscious of Cora again moving round the kitchen area making lunch and refreshing the ever constant coffee pot. Cupping his hands round his mug, absorbing the warmth, he wondered what it would be like to have lived all your life on the receiving end of such care and attention. He noticed that she didn’t fuss and she didn’t order, but her eyes were on her father, making sure that he ate as well as talked, and Xander had no doubt that she would have words to say to both Jacob and Joe if they didn’t show their respect and finish the meal she’d laid out for them. He also had no doubt from the way she was frowning that she would also have words for him, if he didn’t stop woolgathering and finish the food remaining on his plate.

Xander ducked his head, giving his full attention to the rest of his lunch for several minutes. When he glanced up again, he noticed that Joe was grinning at him and he raised his eyebrows in mute question as Joe’s grin became a rumbling laugh. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a guest or family, you can’t escape Cora’s eagle eye when it comes to her kitchen. I’ve seen grown men brought to their knees for not clearing their plates.” Jacob nodded solemnly in agreement and Xander watched with amusement as Cora snorted and picked up Joe and Jacob’s very empty plates. His own lunch now finished, he rose, intending to follow her into the small kitchen area, plate in hand, but a firm touch on his arm from Joe pushed him gently back into his seat. “Cora thinks a man in the kitchen is a recipe for broken dishes!” 

Joe turned and looked at his wife who was watching him with a look of wry amusement. “It’s an opinion born of bitter experience. I’ve lost count of the plates that got ‘accidently broken’ because one of you has tried to ‘help’.” She smiled at Xander. “I apologise for placing you in the same category as these two, but I had begun to spot a pattern whenever they ventured into this corner of the house.”

Xander nodded, struggling to stay solemn as he replied. “Of course, they could be doing it deliberately, so that they don’t have to help, but I’m sure that couldn’t possibly be true.” He glanced over at Joe and Jacob waiting for some reaction or protest but they were both studiously studying the grain in the table, and as he looked back up at Cora he saw that she was still smiling, with a knowing look in her eyes, and he realised that there was very little her family got away with, without her tacit consent.

Jacob rose to his feet, stretching creakily, before walking the few feet to where Cora was standing. Xander watched as the old man dropped a light kiss on her forehead before stepping back. “Thank you for lunch,” he said. “I think it time for me get some air, so I would suggest that Joe and I take Alexander for a tour and give you a little peace for a while.” 

Xander stood silent, torn between wanting to hear more of Jacob’s tale, and feeling as if he should offer to help Cora with whatever chores she might have lined up. But before he could say anything, Cora nodded at her father’s suggestion. “I think that is a good idea. Take your time and get some air and some exercise, but don’t tire out Alexander too much with your talk.”

Xander thought about protesting but Joe beat him to it. “Considering Xander is the youngest of us, I think there is little danger of that, but we will try not to exert ourselves too much.” He held out his hand bridging the small space between him and his wife and she curled her fingers around his, allowing him to pull her towards him. He kissed her cheek with the same gentleness that Jacob had done and stepped back. “Shall we go and see what the weather is doing?”

Jacob was already turning for the door so after several heartbeats Xander simply murmured his thanks for the meal and the hospitality before following his lead. He could almost feel Cora’s eyes watching him as he followed the old man back into the hall and then, as Joe swung in behind him, the feeling was suddenly gone and he shook himself as he stepped out into the warmth of the spring afternoon. 

Xander blinked at the brightness of the sunlight after the cocooning dimness of the kitchen. He took a deep breath, savouring the clean, fresh air of the small river valley. Stretching, he cocked his head to the side, in mute question to his two companions who were watching him silently. He tensed in the middle of his stretch, but then gradually relaxed as he realised there was no pressure to fill the quiet and he took another deep breath before speaking. “So are you going to give me the tour?”

“We can do that.” Joe said.

Xander smiled and nodded and then looked at Jacob who stood packing an old pipe that he’d taken out of his trouser pocket. “I’m guessing that Cora doesn’t let you smoke that inside the house?”

Joe snorted and Xander had to laugh when he saw an expression that was part disgust and part guilt flit across Jacob’s face as he lit the pipe and took a long, luxurious puff. “And I think that expression says it all.”

“I believe that a man should pick his battles, and this is one I choose not to fight. Now if you two are finished making fun of an old man, perhaps we should walk.”

Xander stood for a moment watching Jacob turn away, before exchanging another grin with Joe and following. He wanted to ask Jacob to continue his story, but as in the kitchen that morning, he didn’t want to appear to press too hard, so he let Jacob enjoy his pipe in peace and listened to Joe as he guided them up a footpath between the unfamiliar buildings. 

He looked about him with interest, listening attentively as Joe pointed out the various amenities -the small school with the new gym which doubled as the community hall, which all the people of Elk River had helped to raise money for and build. The outdoor basketball court which was occupied by a few teenage boys. Xander felt curious eyes watching him as they passed by. 

They threaded their way through a number of small workshops and past other houses that made up the horseshoe shape of the village, all the way down to the water’s edge. Some were neat and well tended, and others not so much, just like any other town. It was all so achingly normal, just people living and trying to get by and again he wondered how the choices of people in his past had helped to shape his future and realised that he held that same power through his own choices. He lost himself in the tangle of his thoughts, until he came abruptly back to reality when he bumped into Joe’s back when the man stopped suddenly. 

Xander had the grace to look embarrassed, as Joe looked at him reproachfully and said, “I know I’m not the most exciting tour guide ever, but I’ve never actually had someone glaze over on me before.” The slight grin ghosting at the edge of his mouth took the sting out of his words, but Xander still blushed and studied his boots before forcing himself to meet Joe’s gaze. 

“Sorry about that”, he murmured. “I was just thinking about how normal it all was. I know it’s stupid and I’m stereotyping and I really don’t mean to, but I didn’t know what to expect.”

He looked from Joe to Jacob and flushed again, suddenly feeling very young and completely ignorant. “We’re just people, Xander” said Joe, unwittingly echoing Xander's earlier thoughts. “Like I said to you last night, this isn’t a theme park, but it’s not some slum village either. We’ve been here a long time and Elk River has changed many times over the years, according to the needs of the community, but some things remain constant – the land and the river are here and the people are here, just as they’ve been for generations.”

For a moment, time seemed to stretch and Xander got a fleeting impression of a string of men and women standing behind Jacob and Joe, a reminder of the age of the land and of the connection he perhaps now had with his unknown past. “I get that”, he said. “I guess I hadn’t really thought about it and I should have.” He looked at the two men, wondering if he’d completely fucked things up, and then something loosened in his gut as Joe smiled and shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it. This is why you came in the first place; to find out things you didn’t know. Curiosity and an openness to learn can never be a bad thing. But enough deep thoughts for now. Let’s go down towards the river and enjoy the sun for a bit.”

Relieved, Xander grinned weakly and they started off again. They meandered down the footpath towards a neat vegetable plot near the river bend, that was closed in by post and rail fencing, with chicken wire around the lower part of the fence. “It won’t keep anything really determined out, but it keeps out some of the smaller critters who are looking for something easy to munch on,” said Joe. 

Xander nodded and leaned lightly against the fence, watching the sun play on the water, before turning his head to see that Jacob had settled next to him on his good side. He knew that it was time to continue the tale, but he gave the old man the courtesy of waiting until he was ready to start.

“I’m guessing you wish to know the next part of the story?” Jacob asked.

Xander cocked his head to the side in a gesture that he was ready to listen. “If you feel you are ready to tell it?”

Jacob paused, taking the time to relight his pipe which Xander realised must have gone out while he was having his earlier mini-crisis. When he was satisfied with the glow in the bowl of the pipe, he began to speak. “I knew that they had finished up in California, but I went first to Indiana. I know that it seems like an unnecessary detour, but a part of me needed to understand the journey that Francis had taken, the sights he’d seen and the places where he had settled and found happiness for a time. So I went to the farm, and although many years had passed, I found that some of Rebecca’s family were still there and that my brother was remembered with respect and affection by a surprising number of people in the community. They seemed fascinated that I was there, so long after Francis had arrived in such difficult times, so young and eager and able to help, to do the jobs that perhaps others felt they didn’t want to do. I was heartened by the generosity of people’s hearts, of their ability see that difficult times brings people together, as well as driving them apart. I talked and I listened, much as you are doing now, and after a few days, my need for answers satisfied, I left the farm and Indiana behind. But I have never forgotten the kindness, and the curiosity, I found there and I will keep that with me until this life is past.”

As Xander listened to Jacob talk about his need to follow in his brother’s footsteps, he flashed back to the telling of his own story, of his desire to detail every step of the day in the attic, when he discovered the old tin box under the floorboard. He could see the symmetry in the tales; the need to respect the journey, as well as the destination. He ran his fingers along the smoothed off wood of the top railing of the fence, enjoying the feeling of the solid timber under his hand, before he looked back up at Jacob. “So you went to California and you found them?”

Jacob smiled and inclined his head as he pulled on his pipe, before answering. “I found them, eventually. I had my own journey and my own adventures along the way and perhaps one day we will sit and talk of those, but not today. I know that you are eager to hear more of Francis.”

“I am happy to hear whatever you’re willing to tell me. I’m guessing you have some tales.”

Jacob took another pull of his pipe and closed his eyes briefly, as if he was remembering, before he opened them again and looked at Xander. “Let me say that in 1951 the world was beginning to change and stretch after the rigours of war, but the attitude of many in that time was no different from what Francis would have faced when he first left here in the 30’s. As I travelled my admiration for the brother I never knew grew and blossomed.

“It took me several weeks to get to California, by coach, and train, and hitching. I didn’t have a lot of money, so there was a lot of hitching. It was an interesting time and I learned a lot in those weeks.” 

Xander pictured the old man as a teenager, travelling across America on a quest, and he felt his stomach tighten at the pictures in his head. A hand on his arm brought him back to the present and he realised Jacob was watching him curiously. “You went elsewhere again. I hope I have not stirred up bad memories?”

“No.” Xander shook his head in reassurance. “I was just thinking of my own effort to travel across the country when I was eighteen, although I was headed away from California, not towards it. The trip failed spectacularly when my wreck of a car broke down in the middle of nowhere and I spent a month washing dishes to afford the repairs, before heading home with my tail between my legs. Listening to you, kind of makes me feel I should have been more persistent and found another way to carry on.”

“Eighteen is a strange age, so young and so determined to be an adult. Whether it is me or you or Francis, you can only look back at your younger self and realise the decisions you made were done in good faith. If you had wanted to carry on your journey, you would have found a way to do so. But when your heart is calling you home, there is nothing you can do to ignore it.”

Xander’s hands continued to rub lightly on the wooden rail as he considered Jacob’s words. “I guess so”, he replied eventually. “It’s immaterial now. But to get back to you, you finally made it to California...” he prompted. 

“I finally made it to California,” Jacob agreed. “Francis’ later letters had come from Sonoma County, so that’s where I headed. There hadn’t actually been an address in any of the letters, but I did some asking around and it wasn’t that hard to track them down. As someone said to me ‘An Indian and a white girl living together, it just ain’t natural.’” Jacob twisted his lips at the bitterness of the memory, like he’d just bitten into a sour apple. “I suppose I should be grateful for the bigot’s words, even if they were meant to hurt me, as much as they were meant to demean Francis and Rebecca. They gave me a trail to follow and I finally found them, helping to run a small orchard just outside Kenwood. The work was hard and they didn’t have much money, but they’d managed to carve out a life for themselves and they were proud of their achievements, as they should have been.”

“What was it like when you met? It must have been emotional and a bit weird as well.”

Jacob smiled as he considered his answer to Xander’s question.”All of those things and many more. I didn’t know what to say to him, at first, even though I’d rehearsed things in my head. I stood there at their door like a big dumb ox and forgot my lines. Then I remember saying his name and the words just came and wouldn’t stop. I had found my brother and the loneliness and the hardships of the journey fell away.

“I met Rebecca and we sat down to dinner, much as we did last night when you arrived with Joe. We talked long into the night, finding out about our lives. The next day I met their daughter, Elizabeth, who was the same age as me. It was strange at first to think that my brother had a child my age and that I had missed her growing up. It made me realise how wide the gulf was between Francis and myself, despite the blood we shared.”

“He believed you right away?” Xander asked. “I mean, it’s not every day that your long lost half brother turns up on your doorstep. You could forgive him if he’d been a bit sceptical at first.”

“That is true,” Jacob replied. “I had tried to be prepared for such an eventuality. I had thought of asking my father to allow me to take some mementoes from Francis childhood, as proof, but he would not let me read the letters and I did not have the nerve to ask him to give up the few remaining items that reminded him of his first born. So I travelled with hope and faith in my heart and tried to believe that they would be sufficient. The moment I spoke of Elk River and my father’s name, Francis believed and it was enough.”

Xander envied the level of trust and honesty implicit in Jacob’s words and he wanted to hear more about how the half brothers came to know to each other. But he wanted one other thing even more and for once his impatience overtook his courtesy to the old man. “Tell me about Elizabeth.” Xander could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice, but if Jacob noticed he gave no indication and carried on his narration.

“She had dark hair, half way between brown and black and the same dark eyes as her father, but she had her mother’s stubborn nature and strong will. She was being courted by a boy from the town and he was hostile at first to my presence. I thought it was due to my heritage, but I put aside the thought when I realised how open and friendly he was with Francis and how he pursued Elizabeth with such determination, despite knowing that his parents did not approve. Then I realised that he saw me as a threat, as someone who could take Elizabeth away from him. I was like any eighteen year old male with an eye for a pretty girl, but Elizabeth was family and I had to disabuse him of his misconceptions.”

“What was his name?” Xander asked, hardly daring to voice the question.

“Elizabeth’s boy? His name was Nathaniel.”

Xander leaned against the fence, his hands gripping the wood until his knuckles where white with the strain. He closed his eyes, struggling again with his emotions before opening them and staring ahead, watching the play of the sunlight on the river. “My grandfather’s name was Nathaniel. I remember having difficulty saying it when I was small. When you said that Francis had a daughter called Elizabeth I told myself that it could still be coincidence, that this quest could still be a wild goose chase, but Nathaniel and Elizabeth together is more than coincidence.”

“I told you last night, that I don’t believe in coincidence.”

Xander watched the water for a moment longer before pushing himself away from the rail and turning to face Jacob. “I remember. I never knew my grandmother, apart from that her name was Elizabeth. My mom wouldn’t talk about her. She just told me that she’d died when mom was very young and that mom grew up in her grand-parents house – her father’s parents, I mean.”

“That is true. Even though I eventually had to return to Elk River, I had found my brother and we swore that we won’t lose each other again. We wrote to each other, perhaps twice a year, and from one of his letters I found out that Nathaniel and Elizabeth had married and had a child, another daughter. They named her Jessica. But when the child was still small, perhaps three, Elizabeth contracted TB and was admitted to a sanatorium. She never came back out. Francis wrote to me of his grief over Elizabeth’s death. He mourned her as any father would and finally understood what his own father had suffered when his mother had died. He tried to talk to Nathaniel about the care of his grand-daughter, but the boy wouldn’t listen. He wasn’t able to look after a small child on his own, so he turned back to his parents for help – the same people who had objected to his marriage. He refused to consider other options and despite trying many times to reason with the boy, Francis and Rebecca were cut out of their grand child’s life."

“You mean they never got to see her again?” Xander was horrified at the picture Jacob had drawn. “But that’s crazy. She was their grand-daughter. How could Nathaniel do that?”

“He was her father. It was as simple as that.” Xander glanced down as Jacob laid a hand on his arm as if to comfort him. “You must understand, Nathaniel was not a bad man. He was a young man who had defied his parents for love and now the reason for that love was gone and he was lost. He felt like he was on his own, even though it wasn’t true, and he was faced with the raising of a young child, so he turned to family – his own family. Francis spoke of this often in his letters over the years. How his initial anger and grief finally turned to understanding. He told me that Nathaniel came to see him just before moving back into his parents’ house. He didn’t apologise for what he was doing, but he did say that he hoped that Francis understood. That while he hadn’t cared what people thought while Elizabeth was alive, now that he was on his own, he realised that a lot of folk thought like his parents, and that he wanted to give Jessica a chance to grow up without having to feel that she was somehow different.”

“So he stripped her of her history and walled her up in an unhappy house?” Xander could hardly keep the disgust and hurt out of his voice and Jacob’s grip on his arm became firmer.”

“Do not judge, what you cannot change. You could just as well blame Francis and Rebecca for not fighting harder for their grand-daughter. As I have said, they had tried to reason with Nathaniel many times, but in the end they had to accept his rights as a father. And Francis told me that part of him couldn’t disagree with Nathaniel’s thinking. Things had not been easy for Rebecca or for Elizabeth and there were some folk in the town who would cross the street rather than talk to them. You have to understand, we treasure our heritage and our family, but there was a small voice in Francis’ head that did not want his grand-daughter to have to struggle as others had done, and in the end there was very little he could do once the decision was made. He wrote that Nathaniel allowed him to gather a few things that Jessica might want to take with her – small things that could be treasured but kept tucked away. Nathaniel didn’t want her to forget where she came from; he just didn’t want her to acknowledge it in public.”

“The things in the box,” Xander whispered, and he stared at Jacob as the old man nodded.

“The things in the box,” Jacob echoed. “Francis had made the doll for Jessica not long after she was born, and the locket had a picture of Elizabeth inside. The photograph was of Francis as a young man just before he left Elk River. He told me that Jessica used to stare at it when she was tiny and would sometimes talk to the boy in the photograph. There were other things as well, but they obviously became lost or damaged in the intervening years. The photograph and the doll and the locket survived, hidden away from judgemental eyes, until a twelve year old boy became curious one day in an overheated attic.”


	9. Chapter 8

Taking a deep breath, Xander pushed himself away from the rails of the fence and skirted the vegetable plot, making his way down to the river’s edge. Words and images conjured up from Jacob’s story whirled in his head. He pictured the photo of Francis as a young man and imagined him flirting shyly with Rebecca in an Indiana field. He saw Jacob hitching his way across to California and meeting with his brother for the first time. An image of Elizabeth, dark eyed and serious flitted through his mind as she met Nathaniel in secret places, away from his parents disapproving eyes. He pictured Nathaniel, scared and feeling like he had run out of choices. Finally there was Jessica. He had seen pictures of her as a child, on one of the few occasions he’d sneaked a look at the scrapbook she kept jealously hidden under her bed. Slight and solemn eyed, she’d stood in a posed family photograph, her father standing with his hands on her shoulders and her grandparents sitting side by side dressed in their Sunday best. He remembered that no one in the photograph was smiling. In his mind, the young girl morphed into the world weary woman he’d known throughout his childhood and he wondered if she’d ever really had a chance, growing up in a loveless household with no acknowledgement of her past other than a tattered photograph, a small wooden doll and the picture of a dead women in a small tarnished locket 

He sank down to his knees on the banks of the river, his hands plucking at the blades of long, sun-warmed grass as he tried to order his thoughts. There was a movement to his right, and as he turned sideways, Jacob lowered himself creakily to the ground beside him. Xander smiled sheepishly and the old man smiled back before speaking. “This is where I used to come to think, when I was growing up,” he said. When I dreamed of travel and the wider world. The village at my back was close enough to feel safe, but I would look outward, across the river, and dream about being grown up and no longer a child.” 

Xander pulled at another blade of grass, studying it for a moment as he collected himself. “I like that thought – safety and the possibility of adventure all at the same time.” He paused, thinking about his own childhood and the story of family and history that Jacob had told. “You know, my mom didn’t really talk much about her childhood, but I got the impression that it wasn’t particularly happy, from the little she did say over the years. I remember we’d occasionally visit with my grandfather at Thanksgiving and it was always really formal. It was kind of awkward, because my Dad was so not with the formal, so it was always a strain, even before we got there and inevitably something would be said before the meal finished. We only went a handful of times, before we stopped getting the invitation. I think we only got the invitations in the first place because it was the proper thing to do.”

Xander paused, biting absently at his lip as he pulled long buried memories to the surface. “I remember once, when I was small, interrupting a conversation during dinner. I can’t remember what I wanted to say, but it was obviously important to me at the time and I’ve never been able to control my mouth. That’s one thing that’s never changed through the years.” Xander glanced behind him when he heard Joe laugh quietly from his position leaning up against the wall of the last house before the river bend. It was strange, but comforting, that he felt so easy with Joe at his back. He had half forgotten the man was there, in his effort to concentrate on his conversation with Jacob. He shot Joe a look, getting an unrepentant grin by return, before turning back to focus on Jacob. “I remember my grandfather telling my mother that she wasn’t raising me to have proper manners. There was a whole spiel about children being seen, not heard and that she'd obviously forgotten the lessons of her own childhood since she’d hooked up with my dad. The thing that made it stick in my head, all these years, is that my mom and dad were always rowing about something or other. Nothing was too petty to start an argument over, and I expected her to come back at her father and defend herself, but she didn’t. She didn’t rise to him and she didn’t defend me, she just sat there and took the criticism. I may not have been very old then, but looking back and working out the timeline, she and my dad must have been married for a long time by then, I’m guessing about fifteen years, so she should have reacted, been a grown up, not a daughter, you know? But she didn’t, she just sat there.” Shaking his head at the memory, he continued. “I guess that’s the way she’d been brought up and her father was repeating the teachings of his own family.”

Jacob didn’t say anything for a moment. He just looked out across the river to the hills beyond, like he was seeking answers to difficult questions in the familiar landscape, just as he had done all his life. Finally he sighed and looked over at Xander. “Family can be the greatest blessing in a person’s life. I know that I have been blessed in this way. But while it is right to pass on knowledge and history, and to respect and honour the past, it is too easy to pass on a point of view that has outlasted its usefulness. Children should respect and listen to their elders, but they should not fear to challenge them. But when a person becomes an adult, it does not stop them from being a son or a daughter, and for even the most independent adult, the child-parent bond will remain a major factor in their life.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Although I know from bitter experience that challenging my elders usually resulted in a black eye, or a failing grade.” Looking up, he saw Jacob’s expression change and he realised he’d said too much and rushed to gloss over the error. “But that’s so not the point, right now. Over the years as I grew up and tried for a little, and I emphasise the ’little’, maturity, whenever I’ve thought of my grandfather, I've tried to give him credit for being a product of his time and a rigid family, and sometimes it worked. Sometimes, though, I just think he was a nasty son of a bitch who was too tied to his own family’s moral code to lend a hand to a daughter who was drowning in an unhappy house. I know that I should probably have some sympathy for him, that he felt he didn’t have a choice, and that he perhaps genuinely thought he was doing the right thing by Jessica. But from everything you’ve said about his parents, they didn’t want him to marry Elizabeth, and once she died and he needed help, they punished him in their own moralistic way and mom was punished by proxy, just for being born.”

Trailing his hand absently through the cold, clear water of the river, Xander sighed and looked back up at Jacob, who was watching with no expression on his face. “My grandfather was really pissed that mom married my dad, I know that. The Harris clan ain’t exactly people you’d have round for afternoon tea, but the ironic thing is that he forced her into it. There’s nothing like a good, old fashioned, shotgun wedding to get a relationship off to a good start. She was only sixteen and the awful thing is that she miscarried not long after the wedding.” He pulled his hand out of the water and rubbed his face tiredly, as the weight of the memories seemed to sap the energy from his body as well as his mind. “I didn’t know that I almost had an older brother or sister, until mom and dad were in the middle of one of their normal Saturday night fights, and after they’d exhausted all the usual ammunition, out of the blue my mom started screaming about the baby she’d lost and how she’d never have married my dad out of choice. I remember even my dad looked shocked at that one, it was like it was an off limits subject, buried in a child sized coffin and never talked about, but there is was, out in the sun to be picked over like carrion.” He pictured the vultures wheeling over the bodies of the dead and dying in a village in Africa, where a Slayer had taken her calling to its most extreme conclusion and for a moment the he couldn’t speak, as Africa threatened to swallow him whole. He came back to himself when Jacob touched his arm and he was aware of Joe crouched down next to Jacob, a concerned expression on his face. Suddenly Xander felt totally exposed and strangely comforted, as if he could say anything, confess to anything, and not be judged and found wanting. The temptation was almost overwhelming, but he needed to put the distant past to bed before he faced events much closer to the surface, so he shook his head and looked in turn into two pairs of concerned eyes. “Sorry, I had a bit of a mental diversion there.” 

“We are here, if you wish to talk,” said Joe, and Jacob nodded his agreement. “Or not, as the case may be. In many cases, the time to talk becomes obvious and only you can judge when that time appears.”

Xander rubbed at his eyepatch again, as he struggled to get his emotions back under control. He looked at the two men at his side and there was only honesty and concern in their eyes and all of a sudden his breathing calmed and his head cleared. “Thank you. There is stuff in my brain that sometimes gets the better of me. Maybe one day we’ll have that conversation, but like you say, everything has its time and this is a conversation about other people, not about me.”

Jacob shook his head, like Xander had said something particularly ridiculous. “Alexander, this is a conversation about you. It is a conversation about your journey from that twelve year old boy in the attic, to now and what the future holds. We honour the past and the people who came before us, by continuing their journey in whatever form it presents itself to us. So I would ask you to continue your contribution to this tale. Tell me about Jessica and the brother or sister you never knew. They are part of this tale, just as you are.”

Xander stared at Jacob for a moment, trying to work out what to say next. He mentally flailed at the idea that he carried the history he had never known on his shoulders, but as the feeling started to overwhelm him, he latched onto the last part of Jacob’s exhortation. He could talk about his mom and his dad and the story that he had begun only minutes before, but which somehow seemed to have started in another universe.

“Okay, I can tell you about Jessica, about my mom, I can do that. Sure, I can do that.” He took a deep breath before continuing, the scene from years before rolling out before him as he turned his head and stared at the bright, clear water of the river. “After my mom had blown up about the baby, my dad left the house and didn’t come back for three days straight and my mom went into the bedroom, locked the door and wouldn’t come out. I could hear her crying but she wouldn’t answer me when I called. Then dad came back and they acted like it hadn’t happened. The subject never came up again and they both shut me down the couple of times I tried to ask about it. I sometimes wondered why they stayed together, but mom’s family didn’t do divorce, it was like a rule.” He looked at the two men and saw they were both watching him and listening attentively. ”You said that this family has a history of strong women and it’s true. My mom was strong, although I didn’t realise it when I was growing up. She put up with so much shit from my dad, from her dad and from me over the years, but it takes more than simple strength to go against years of conditioning. Divorce went against every family tradition she’d been taught in her grandparents house and that was one battle she just couldn’t fight. She and dad would have been happier, that’s for sure, if they’d divorced after the miscarriage, but happiness wasn’t as important as the veneer of respectability. It didn’t matter how thin that veneer was, it was the fact that it was there that counted. That’s something that came straight from Nathaniel’s parents and out of his mouth.”

“If Jessica and your father had got divorced, you would not exist and we would not be having this conversation, and I for one would be sorry to have missed such an opportunity.”

Xander plucked at the grass again before answering. “But if I hadn’t been born, you wouldn’t have known there was anything to miss.”

Smiling wryly, he looked up at Jacob, as if challenging him to come back with an answer, and the old man merely pulled on his pipe and grinned back. “Which is why I have always thought that certain things are meant to be.”

“So, are you on the side of all things being fated?”

Jacob took another long draw and watched for a moment as a misshapen smoke ring wafted away into the air above him. He waited until the smoke had dissipated before answering. “I believe that there are things that cannot be explained. That there are powers in the universe that move and shape the world. But I believe that every man is master of his own destiny; that you have choices. You could have chosen not to come to Elk River. You could have chosen not to accept Joe’s offer of a ride. And the boy of so many years ago could have chosen to leave the box in the attic. But you did choose all these things and they have led you down a certain path, but only you can decide what to do next.”

Pondering everything that both Jacob and Joe had said, Xander hauled himself to his feet and stood, his hands deep in his pockets, like they needed to be tethered, in case they did something of their own accord. He pictured his parents, trying to see them with fresh eyes, not prejudiced by so many years of fights and silences and tiptoeing to his room after another night on patrol. He tried to picture his mom, as she might have been if Elizabeth hadn’t died and Nathaniel hadn’t felt the need to bow to his parents' will. What would she have been like if she had still been connected to Francis and Rebecca? Would she have been proud of her family history? Would she have taught him where he came from? His mind slid to his dad and he forced himself to ask the same question. If Jessica had been different, would Tony have been different too? Or if their unplanned baby hadn’t died, would they have settled down, would they have loved the child? Would they have loved him? Would he have been different?

His hand clenched in his pockets and he forced them to straighten before he turned back to the two men waiting silently behind him. “It’s funny, you know, when I was growing up, I used to blame myself for my parents being so unhappy. Before I knew about the miscarriage, I mean. They’d been married so stupidly young, just to satisfy some kind of notion of respectability because that was what happened at that time. Then, years later, there was my mom, pregnant with me at the ripe old age of 29. They’d probably given up on the thought of kids and I guess that’s maybe another reason they stayed together; they were so bound up in their own personal dramas and they could give them every ounce of attention, with no one to get in the way. Then, all of a sudden, mom’s pregnant and there’s this elephant in the room, wrapped in a dirty diaper, demanding attention all the time. For the longest time I thought it was all about me, and how egotistical is that? ”

He closed his eye for a moment and when he opened it again, both Joe and Jacob had twin expressions of worry on their faces. With the dexterity of years of practice, Xander grinned, self mockingly, to lighten the atmosphere. Jacob looked at him knowingly, before taking his cue from Xander’s expression. “And on that note of self pity we should go in or Cora will send out a search party and I will be admonished for being an inconsiderate host.” Xander grinned at the mock sigh as Jacob continued. “Sometimes I think back with great fondness to the times when she was little enough to scold.”

Jacob held out his hand and Xander grabbed it, hauling him up off the ground. Jacob nodded his thanks and, with a self conscious smile, he stuffed his burned out pipe in his pocket. Xander exchanged a conspiratorial look with Joe and there was an unspoken agreement that no one would mention the pipe to Cora. As if she wouldn’t know.

“I’ve been thinking.” Xander glanced sideways at Jacob as they made their way back towards Joe’s house. Jacob looked at him questioningly but stayed silent as if waiting for Xander to continue when he was ready. “Do you think my mom remembered her mom at all? She was so small when Elizabeth died and from what you’ve said, it wasn’t exactly a discussion topic that came up under her grandparents’ roof; I’m just wondering how much she remembered.”

“She kept the box with the mementos, didn’t she? That would suggest she had memories. Francis gave her the doll that he had made for her, there was the locket containing a picture of Elizabeth and she had the photograph of Francis as a young man. She kept them, all those years, so I think that says something.”

“I guess so, but she kept them hidden away in the dark under an attic floorboard, like she was ashamed of them, ashamed of Elizabeth and of Francis, ashamed of herself.” Xander could feel the old feelings of self doubt start to swallow him as he thought about why his mom would have hidden her past, but then he felt Joe’s hand on his arm, grounding him, making him rational, and he steadied, listening to Jacob’s reply instead of burying himself in his own confusion.

Xander knew that Jacob was watching him, seeing the expressions flit over his face, so clear and easy to read, and he felt himself holding his breath for a brief moment as the old man considered his words before answering.“ Perhaps, do not think of it as ‘hiding them’, so much as protecting them, and by default protecting herself. We all have parts of ourselves that we keep under lock and key and only take out to examine in the privacy of our own thoughts. Your mother may not have been everything you would have wanted, but she survived and protected herself in whatever way she could. Now you are here and her actions are vindicated and it is for you to decide how to carry on the journey of those who came before you.”

Peering at him through too long bangs, Xander shrugged. “And that’s the $64,000 question. I came here because I was tired and needed to take stock and I wanted the time to find answers to the questions I’ve had in my head since that day in the attic. But now that I’m here and I have those answers, I’m not sure I know what comes next.”

Xander looked at Jacob, willing him to give the answers he needed, while acknowledging that he had already been given so much. There was so much about both men that set him at ease in a way he hadn’t felt in years and when Jacob spoke, he listened, absorbing the old man’s words and playing them back in his head. ”There is time enough to make decisions. For the moment, be content to listen and to talk and to enjoy good company. You will know what comes next, when the time is right.”

So Xander walked and listened and enjoyed the company, and decided that thinking could wait until tomorrow.


	10. Chapter 9

The days drifted while he took Jacob’s advice. He talked and he listened and he enjoyed good company. But as one day melted into another, he could feel an itch, somewhere deep in his brain, tapping out messages like Morse Code. He tried to ignore the feeling, but gradually, hour by hour, day by day, the itch got more persistent. It echoed in his mind and morphed from an itch to a whisper, asking him what happened next. Telling him that he had to decide what to do. He tried to shut off the voice, but it resisted and pictures of Francis leaving Elk River, of Jacob hitching through California and of Joe driving the highway in a beaten up truck, revolved in his mind. "Moving, always moving, always journeying forward, got to move forward. The past is gone," the voice murmured. "Understand it, learn from it, take the story forward. It’s your future. You have to make up your mind. It’s been a week since you’ve been here. It’s been a month since that day in Africa. You have to decide. You can’t stand still. You know that you can’t stand still." The whisper faded into nothingness when he realised that the time for procrastination was over. 

_The hammock swung in the darkness and Xander dreamed._

The sun was high and hot on his skin as he weaved in and out of the horseshoe of houses nestled in the small river valley. The ground was hard under his bare feet and he paused to crouch and scoop some cold water from the river with cupped hands, and trickle it down the back of his neck. He walked on, past the small, neat school house, the basket ball hoop and the shed that held the main generator. Joe’s truck floated inexplicably in mid air, but it merited only a quick glance as Xander carried on his way.

When he rounded the end of the last house Cora stood watching him, a Barbie in one hand and a Twinkie in the other, but when he called to her, she turned, crossed the bridge over the river and walked slowly up the hill. Xander started to follow her, but Jacob stepped into his path, his face grave and his hands outstretched, fingers pointing downwards, and Xander’s gaze followed the movement. A toy machine gun and a carefully carved stake lay in the dust at Jacob’s feet. Staring at the weapons, time seemed to stretch and twist in his head and he looked back up at the old man, questions in his eyes, but Jacob shook his head as his body shimmered like a heat mirage and suddenly Joe was standing in his place. Xander could hear himself, in his mind, asking for an explanation, but no words came out of his mouth. Joe grinned at him, stooped and picked up the gun and the stake from the ground, and put his hands behind his back. Xander heard him in his head, “Soon, but not yet. You don’t have all of the puzzle pieces. Then you’ll have to choose.” Xander watched as Joe walked forward, his hands still hidden behind him and passed through Xander’s body, as insubstantial as a ghost, or a vampire turning to dust. Xander stood, frozen, his eyes fixed on the spot where Joe had been and his head ached at the thought that this man, this friend, this father figure he barely knew, was gone.

A sharp cry on the summer wind pulled him back to himself and he saw Cora standing at the top of the hill, her arms held high above her head, like she was calling salutations to the sun. He started towards her, walking slowly at first, but then running and stumbling, his bare feet catching on small stones on the rough, metalled track, but she always seemed to stay the same distance away, no matter how hard and fast he ran. 

The cry came again and he stopped and raised his eyes to the heavens, spying an eagle soaring majestically on the currents, its brown feathers turned black by the squinting rays of the sun, gleamed like armour; its white head, shocking by contrast as it wheeled and spiralled above him. Catching his breath, he reached out his hand towards the bird. It was so high, but he knew that he could touch it, if he just tried a little harder and stretched out his fingers as far as they would go. Fierce yellow eyes stared at him knowingly and he felt like someone was looking at his soul.

_The hammock swung in the darkness and Xander dreamed._

Flames danced and flickered and bare feet stamped in time to the beat of a hypnotic drum. Pale flesh dressed in henna and rubies, she writhed in the hot, humid air. Eyes, dark as night, glittering with promise and a hint of madness, stared across the fire, daring him to surrender his heart to it, to step into the flame and let it devour him.

Xander stood on the edge of the darkness, watching the dance, feeling the heat and the rhythm calling to him, whispering words of seduction in his head. Temptation gnawed at him, chewing at the tattered remnants of his will. It would be so easy; just one step and let the fire cleanse away his doubts and his fears and his guilt. 

A pale hand, tipped with scarlet, beckoned him forward and he heard a siren voice whisper like velvet on the night air. “Come to me…Dance with me…Lay down and rest with me. Put down your burdens my lovely, let others fight if they would. Close your eyes, my pet; step into the fire. Turn your back on the dying and come join the dance.”

Xander stood on the edge of the circle watching the man wearing his face close one tired eye and start to weave his way towards the fire. Xander thought that he shouted, but the man didn’t stop. One step, then two, a third and a fourth. A slender arm curled round his waist like a snake and as Xander stood helpless, teeth sharp as knives struck down and he felt himself fall.

_The hammock swung in the darkness and Xander dreamed._

He could see her, just ahead, streaking through the village, a faint growling floating back on the dry, hot air. She was a hunter, a predator, and he chased her to try to stop her kill. His lungs burned as he followed the hunt. When he broke free of the maze of makeshift buildings and burst into an open space, she was waiting for him. Her face was streaked with white and her hair hung in matted knots around her face and body. Xander stumbled to a halt and his eyes fell on the machete she held tightly in her right hand. She bared her teeth and he stared at her, knowing he was going to die. 

There was a sudden noise from the left and a small dark skinned girl, drenched with blood, burst into the open space and ran towards him, her crusted sword ready in her hand. He felt his fingers stretch, reaching for his pistol, and he drew his arm straight, his hand shaking with the knowledge of what he had to do. He tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come and his whole body trembled as his fingertips twitched against the hot metal in his hand.

A blur of black and white, of dirt and rags and grace, swept into his sightline and as his finger closed on the trigger the figure swung her machete through the air, taking off the head of her prey in one fluid motion. Blood spurted, a dark body fell to the ground, and sightless eyes stared up at him in mute accusation.

He looked down at his hand, fingers trembling on the trigger and then up at the face of his defender. Ancient eyes watched curiously as he lowered his arm, and then flicked down to the body lying at her feet. A hyena laugh echoed somewhere in the heart of the village, distracting him, and when he turned back, she was gone. 

The sun beat down on African soil and a girl lay dead in the dirt. He stared at his gun and back at a headless corpse and he dropped to his knees and tried to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come.

_The hammock swung in the darkness and Xander dreamed._

A scream hung in the night air, fading slowly to an anguished whimper. Hospital white walls were bare and cold to the touch and a child’s drawing fluttered through the air to his feet. A hacksaw slid across the floor as if it had a life of its own, blood crusted on the sharp teeth like a predator that had recently fed.

Xander willed himself to wake, but the white walls morphed into hard stone and a voice whispered in the dark, “Yellow makes you weak. Brown makes you sleepy.” The whisper turned into a giggle and he felt like he was drowning, smothered by a sudden manic laugh. Sweat tricked down the back of his neck and chains rattled in dark corners.

The room spun and he felt himself falling, crashing to the ground, and as he struggled to his knees he looked up into mad eyes, filled the glee. There was a whimper in the darkness behind him and he crab walked backwards, away from the crazy girl, looking for the source of the anguished sound. She stalked towards him, the blade glittering in her hand. “Sshh, hold still. It doesn’t hurt if you hold still.”

The floor was hard and dirty under his fingers and he pushed himself up to his feet, desperate to keep the distance between predator and prey. His eyes swept the room, looking for a weapon, skittering back and forth to the bloody hacksaw in her hand. His foot hit something soft and yielding and he risked a quick look behind him. One hand, two hands, pale white fingers, crusted with blood. He stared, trying to make sense of what he was seeing and then whirled round and she was right there, licking gory fingers as she grinned up at him. He heard someone pleading and realised that it was him. “Please don’t. Please...” He took a step back and then another but she kept on coming, as inexorable as the rising tide. There was another whimper, louder than before and he glanced back and froze at the sight of black leather and white hair and bloody stumps. Chains rattled, pulled taut against cold stone and crystal blue eyes rimmed with yellow stared up at him. He heard a whisper from pale lips, “It’s time to choose.”

He felt a rush in the air behind him and saw the glint of sharp metal teeth flashed through the darkness. Xander screamed.

The hammock swung in the darkness and he clung to the edges of his life raft, tossing in the turbulent sea of his dreams. Sweat poured down his face and his chest heaved, heart thumping like a pile driver as he forced himself to open his eyes. The first tendrils of dawn were creeping through the wooden shutters and his gaze flickered to dark corners, checking the shadows for danger. Gradually his breath eased, but his mind continued to whirl, images of Cora standing on the hill top, of Joe and Jacob and a toy gun. An eagle floated on the currents and Dru danced to her own music through the fire. Babatee lay dead in the African dust and another mad slayer licked blood off the teeth of a hacksaw. Finally, a dead man lay helpless, but still struggling, and asked him to choose. Xander’s stomach heaved and he barely made it outside before his body rebelled.

Xander stood in the gathering dawn, his belly empty and his mind full of questions. He could hear the river burbling gently in the growing light, singing its own seductive song and he closed his eyes and wept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snippets of dialogue from Damage courtesy of http://www.buffyworld.com


	11. Chapter 10

Xander sat at the breakfast table, nursing his coffee and watching Cora from under lowered lashes as she moved about her kitchen. Her gaze swept over him and away, but she didn’t push, and he was grateful that, for the moment at least, she granted him the privacy of his own thoughts. Images of his dream tossed in his head, like waves crashing in a choppy sea, and his knuckles were white against the dark ceramic of the mug, as he worked through his thoughts and tried to keep his stomach from a repeat performance of its earlier actions.

The kitchen door opened and he glanced up. Joe and Jacob strolled in, the older man in front of the younger. Jacob paused to give his daughter a kiss on the cheek, as seemed to be his custom every morning, while Joe just accepted the coffee she offered him with a smile. In that instant, Xander felt a stab of jealousy that they had reached a place in their life together where there were no empty silences, but there was also no need for extraneous words. He thought back to his turbulent relationship with Anya with a flicker of regret and sadness, and he wondered if he’d ever find that kind of peace for himself.

Jacob looked at him, a puzzled expression on his face, but the old man said nothing, just lowered himself slowly into one of the armchairs by the pot bellied stove and watched the activity around him. The quiet rang loudly in the small room, the only sounds those of Cora puttering round the kitchen area, Jacob settling in his chair and the scrape of wood on tile as Joe pulled one of the kitchen chairs out from the small table, flipped it round and straddled it, leaning his forearms easily against the curved top of the upright. Xander knew that he was acting out of character. The last few mornings had been filled with gentle teasing and stories and the opportunity to get to know other people around Elk River. But today…today was different. The dream had made it different. It had made him quiet and nervous and he was conscious of them watching, as if they were waiting for him to crack. Suddenly it seemed like the only thing to do.

“I dreamed last night.” He looked up and around the room, taking in three pairs of sharp eyes, noting curiosity and perhaps something that he almost imagined was compassion. “I haven’t dreamed since I came here, but last night I dreamed. It was so vivid, so real, crazy and mixed up.” He saw Joe lean further forward into the back of the chair, as if a closer proximity to Xander would encourage him to continue. “You were in the dream,” he said, nodding to Joe. “You all were. And there was stuff from my childhood mixed with the present. There were people from my past and a girl I didn’t recognize, but I knew her anyway. So many familiar faces, but all jumbled up with things and people I’ve never seen.”

“Such is the nature of dreams.” Cora came out from behind the kitchen counter and stood behind Joe, her hand on his shoulder.

Xander’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. “Yeah, cryptic. Or maybe just nonsense.” God, how he wanted them to be nonsense! But then he remembered the First Slayer looking at him with ancient eyes, taking away his choice and his culpability and he didn’t know what to think.

Cora gazed at him, letting the silence hang between them. Finally she said, “Perhaps nonsense, yes. Or perhaps portent or prophecy. Who can tell, until events come to pass?”

Xander’s hand gripped the coffee mug and it shook in his hand. “Yeah, well let’s just say that I really don’t want some bits of it to come true.” He looked down and stared at the grain in the tabletop, trying to find his balance.

He counted to ten in his head before looking up to find her still watching him, serenely. “Alexander, you came to Elk River in search of something and while you put together the puzzle pieces, I think your mind was quiet and you had peace. You dreamed of symbols and people from the past and the present and of things you haven’t seen. Perhaps there is a thread of meaning there. Perhaps your dream is a way of telling you that it is time to use the knowledge you have gained and move forward.”

“Are you trying to tell me I’ve outstayed my welcome?” There was a joking edge to his voice, but he could feel a sense of panic start to claw at the bottom of his gut.

She smiled and shook her head. “No,” she said, “I would never do that. We would never do that. But I think I have known for some days that Elk River was not your permanent resting place. At least, not at this point in time. You sought answers and now you have them, such as they are. And a mother bird must encourage her offspring to fledge, when it is time.”

‘Mother’- another capitalised word. It rolled around in his head and his mind flashed back to the revelations of Jessica, and her history, and all the ‘ifs and buts and might have beens’ in his life. To have had a mother like Cora fussing over him, like she fussed over Joe and Jacob; the thought was as seductive as the sound of the river and the siren call of home. “What if I can’t fly? What if I’ve found a nest where I think I could be comfortable? Happy even? What if I said I didn’t think I could let that go?” He smiled sheepishly. “And what if I stopped talking in weird bird metaphors.”

Jacob snorted and Cora laughed before answering him. “Who says that you have to? You are family, you know that now, and there will always be a welcome for you here. Think of it as a place to come and refresh and gain strength.” She paused and regarded him sombrely. “But this is not a place to hide.” She took her hand off of Joe’s shoulder and stepped forward, until she stood next to Xander, her eyes never leaving his face. “I believe in the power of dreams. I was taught to believe by my mother and my father.” Xander’s eyes flickered over to Jacob, but the old man sat watching his daughter with something like pride in his eyes. “I was taught by their mothers and fathers. And so the chain of belief flows both backwards and forwards through the generations. That is our continuity. Your past and your present came together, here in Elk River; you cannot go back and you cannot stand still. Your only choice is to move forward. What path you will walk is your own choice.”

Xander gripped the sides of the coffee cup tightly, feeling the warmth of the rich liquid giving him the strength and courage to continue. “In the last part of my dream, I saw someone I once knew screaming in pain. But he kept struggling, not giving up, in spite of being down on his knees. He told me I had to chose.”

“Were you friends, you and this man?”

He pondered the question and he realised that the point had come when he had to decide just how honest he was willing to be. “No... Yes… Sort of…We came to a kind of hesitant truce, you might say, after too many years of battling. But then he died. Or at least I thought he did.”

“He may continue to live on in your dreams.”

Xander shrugged. “Maybe… Maybe not. I’ve never dreamed of him before. Though some of the people I know have a habit of getting up when you think they’re out for the count.”

She stared at him again, as if she could see the cogs grinding in his head, then turned away towards the kitchen area and lifted the coffee pot. Xander felt himself almost sag with relief at the respite. His eyes flicked back to Joe and Jacob, but their eyes were on Cora as she walked over to Jacob and refilled his mug before returning to the table and repeating the action three more times. Leaning against the end of the kitchen counter, within touching distance of Joe, she settled and sipped her coffee meditatively. Xander couldn’t pull his eyes away and he braced himself for the inquisition he felt was still to come. Inevitably, it did.

“Xander?” she said, and he started, realising that up to now she’d always called him by his proper name. Both she and Jacob had been scrupulous on that point and only Joe had called him Xander. But now there was familiarity and he wondered fleetingly on the significance until she spoke again. “I would ask you a question and I would like you to give me your most honest answer, if you can.” 

“Okay, I guess. You know I’d never actively give you a dishonest one.”

Cora nodded. “Of that I am sure. But there are degrees of truth…” The rest of the sentence was left unspoken and the implication hung in the air before she continued, asking gently, “How did you hurt your eye?”

Xander took a breath, as all the air seemed to leave the room. He’d been expecting the question since the moment he arrived in Elk River, but when the days passed and the subject didn’t arise he had let down his guard and now there was nowhere to hide. He ducked his head briefly to avoid Cora’s gaze and struggled with the implications and the subtext of the question. She had asked for an honest answer and after all the kindness and openness he had received, he could do no less than give the same in return. He took another breath and raised his head to find three pairs of curious eyes watching him patiently, seemingly content to give him his moment.

“There was a fight. Girls were being hurt, people I cared about, so I needed to help.” His voice was low in the silence and his stomach clenched as the scene in the cellar played out in his head. "There was a man, the leader of the bad guys, I guess you could call him.” He shuddered at the thought of Caleb, before making himself continue. “He grabbed me when I went to help one of the girls. He stuck his thumb in my eye. He said that I could see and that he would put a stop to that.” He brushed his hand unconsciously over the ragged patch, feeling again the phantom pain searing into his brain.

A soft touch on his arm brought him back to the reality of the small room, and Cora was standing next to him, concern clear on her face. “Xander?”

“What? Um, sorry. I don’t talk about it very often. Kind of brings back bad memories.” He shook his head, shaking off the picture of Caleb smiling at him. “The man in my dream, he pulled me out before I lost the other eye. He saved my life and I guess, maybe, my sanity. It took me a long time to come to terms with being half blind, even though I made stupid jokes about it. I can only imagine what I would have done if I’d got the whole package. Thankfully some people are a lot quicker than I was and I've never had to do more than imagine.”

His fingers traced the fine wood grain of the table and he tried to lose himself in the soothing touch of the wood, until Cora spoke again. “Such an act could create a powerful bond between two people.”

He considered the thought and then forced himself to look up and meet her gaze. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. We’d spent so many years needling each other that it’s difficult to see the wood for the trees, sometimes. Is that why I dreamed of him being hurt?”

“Perhaps,” she said, before picking up the now empty coffee pot and setting it back on the kitchen counter. She turned back to him and Xander knew that she was formulating her next plan of gentle attack. “Why were you fighting?” 

“What?” It was such an obvious question, but it wasn’t one he’d actually given any real attention to, for years. Buffy fought, he fought, they all fought – that was the way it was. At least, that was the way it had been, until a month ago. 

He waited as she reframed the question. “You said that there was a fight. Why?”

Sliding his chair back from the table, he stood up and walked the few paces to the window, to look out at the sleepy morning scene. The room was quiet behind him and he knew if he looked back they would be frozen in their positions, waiting for him. He picked up an intricate carving from the shelving unit by the window and admired the craftsmanship. Like the feel of the fence posts by the river and the grain of the kitchen table, the texture of the wood under his fingers created a quiet place in his head and gave him the respite he needed to collect his thoughts before turning round to face them. “Would you believe me if I said we were trying to save the world?”

Cora smiled, “If you said it was so, why would I not believe you?”

Xander stared at her, and then placed the carving back in its place on the shelf. ”Just like that?”

“Why not? Why would you lie?”

Okay, that was unexpected and he suddenly felt the need to cut through the weight of honesty in the air. “Umm, because I’m some kind of sociopath, or compulsive liar, or attention seeker?”

Cora raised her eyebrows at his answer. “Are you any of those things?”

“What?” he replied, almost indignant that she’d asked the question and annoyed with himself for providing her with a reason to do so. “No. Of course I’m not.”

“Well, I ask again, why would I not believe you?”

The conversation was slipping out of his control and he had no idea what to say, so in the end he took refuge in the bitter truth. “I have no idea. I guess I don’t see myself as the type anyone would believe, if I said something that outrageous.”

“In the short time you have spent in Elk River, we've talked about trust many times. You were surprised that we trusted you and welcomed you into our home. You have had to trust that the story you had come so far to hear was the truth, as far as we could tell it. Perhaps the time has come for you to trust yourself – to believe that you are worthy of trust. You have family here. You know that now. We could give you advice, tell you what to do, but we are just people. We have our flaws like everyone else, so our guidance, in the end, is no better than you would get from others. But now you have the weight of experience that comes with knowing the tales of Francis and Jacob, Rebecca and Elizabeth, and your mother. Learn from their voices, their bravery and their mistakes. Then listen to your heart and find your own direction."

Xander felt a deep ache in his belly, and he fought down an impulse to go to her, but the need was too great and the hurt of years gone past too raw, so he shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, before they could betray him by acting on his emotions. He looked around the room, seeing Joe still sitting at the table, leaning forward with his arms folded along the back of the chair, while Jacob sat still in the armchair by the pot bellied stove, but in the silence the old man had no words of comfort to offer.

Pulling his hands out of his pockets, Xander ran them distractedly through his hair. “I think I need to go and get some air. I’m sorry. You’ve been nothing but kind and I feel like I’m being a very bad guest.”

He looked first at Cora and then at Jacob, but it was Joe who answered him. “There is nothing to be sorry for. Dreams can stir up many emotions. So can honesty. Go get your air and reflect. We can talk again when you are ready.”

Xander hesitated for a moment, then nodded and made his way quickly to the hallway door and from there out into the deceptive freedom of the outdoors. He was startled to discover that the sun was still fairly low in the sky and when he glanced at his watch he realised that it was only mid morning. Somehow it felt like days, since he’d lain in the hammock and dreamed.

He wandered aimlessly for a while, threading his way between the houses, some neat and some in need of serious repair. People smiled and acknowledged his passing, some stopping to say hello. Others ignored him, or watched suspiciously as he wandered by. He meandered slowly, along the side of the river, and thought about his life, such as it had been so far. There were echoes of smiles and laughter, of anger and doubt, of love and passion, unexpected kindness and unimaginable fear. The backdrops revolved in his head, theatre flats on a cluttered stage – Sunnydale, Africa, Elk River – the faces changed, but the emotions, the hopes and fears and frailties, were constant. That was life as he knew it and that would never change. Finally he made his way to the river bank and eased himself down, looking outwards at the hills, as he imagined a much younger Jacob doing, so many years before. A place of safety, with the prospect of the world beyond laid out before him - it must have been seductive then, and it had lost none of its power in the intervening years.

A random voice echoed in his head. “Bunch of good for nothings live around here... I wouldn’t stay long if I were you….” The words of the old Greyhound bus driver hung in the air like prophecy, but Xander had learned about the ambiguity of prophecy, the moment he’d pushed air back into a dead girl’s lungs at the almost unimaginable age of sixteen. He knew that prophecy would only happen if you let it. Nothing was written in stone, if you fought for change. But if you didn’t...Such was the way that prejudice and ignorance grew, regardless of colour, country or race. The people of Elk River were not perfect. They struggled like any other set of people he’d seen in his short life. Some prevailed while others sank through the cracks. All he could do was be thankful for the kindness of a pick-up truck stopping on an empty road on a hot day and the memory of a small boy’s curiosity in a stifling attic, a long time before.

He couldn’t have said how long he sat by the river, trailing his hands in the cool water, watching, hypnotised, as the stones on the river bed shimmered and shone in the reflected sunlight. The low hum of the village at his back, calmed the clamour of voices in his head and he floated with the current, thinking of Francis travelling to Indiana, of the journey he and his new bride must have taken to get to California and the joy and hardship of raising Elizabeth, only to lose her and, by default, Jessica to a prejudiced world. He thought about Jacob’s search for his brother and the happiness and comfort he’d found in Cora and Joe – there was the siren call of safety and healing and the possibility of home. But as the gentle warmth of the morning morphed into the heat of the early afternoon, he heard an eagle cry, once, high in the distance, and knew that his only way was forward. He had chosen his path, the day a sixteen year old girl had hurtled into his life, and now he had rested, it was time to rejoin the call to arms.

He knew he couldn’t go back to Africa – not yet – possibly not ever, but there were other battles in the same war. Furlough was over and it was time to return to the front.


	12. Chapter 11

The walk back from the river bend seemed to go both too quickly and too slowly. The decision to take action had lifted a huge weight from his shoulders and he should have felt light as air. But he knew that he had swapped one dilemma for another. Now he had to work out what he was going to say. 

Skirting along the side of Joe’s truck, his mind flashed back to Joe stopping on the empty highway one scant week before. He thought again about Jacob’s lack of belief in coincidence and thinking about all that he had learned since he arrived in Elk River, he realised that he would find it very hard to argue the point. Pausing before opening the door into the hall, he wondered what their reaction to his decision would be. If he was being honest, and it seemed to have been the week for honesty, he wasn’t really worried that there would be a scene or harsh words. He was more worried about gentle questions that would force him to expose himself in a way that he’d avoided doing, ever since he was old enough to realise that avoiding the truth wasn’t exactly the same as lying.

It was strange to have come so far in such a short time. He knew he had trusted far too few people in his life, but in just a few days, he also knew that he trusted this family with his heart and with his life. They had been there all this time, and that’s what hurt most of all. Family – his family – the one he hadn’t sought, but that had found him, anyway. And there he was, back to Jacob and coincidence again. He had to believe that they’d understand and somewhere deep inside he hoped they’d give him the strength to go forward. With that thought fixed firmly in his head, he squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

Like that first day, the hallway was cool and dim. His footsteps echoed on the tile as he walked slowly towards the kitchen. The door at the end was ajar, and he wondered idly if it had been left deliberately open, so Cora could hear him, when he came back.

He pushed the door the rest of the way and stopped on the threshold, trying to conjure up more confidence than he felt inside. Cora was standing by the window, deep in conversation with Joe, and Jacob was still sitting in the armchair by the pot bellied stove, his eyes closed and his pipe, unlit, grasped in one slack hand. It was such a tranquil scene, so achingly domestic, and Xander’s resolve flickered like a candle flame when he thought about what he was going to leave behind.

Xander cleared his throat, shuffling his feet, and Cora and Joe looked round at the sudden interruption. Joe smiled and started towards him, while Cora remained by the window, watching him with an assessing eye. Xander knew who he would rather have the conversation with, but he got the feeling that he wasn’t going to get a choice.

“Xander!” Joe slapped him gently on the shoulder. “I was thinking about sending out a search party, but Cora talked me out of it. Women! Always thinking they’re right.”

“And the annoying thing is that they normally are.” Turning at the sound of Jacob’s voice, Xander watched as the old man shifted in his seat and looked back knowingly. “You have taken some time to think, I assume. And I have sat here and drunk too much of my daughter’s excellent coffee, snoozed, and listened to her nag me, when I wanted to have a smoke to go with the drink.” He gestured wryly at the unlit pipe in his hand.

Xander grinned at Jacob before shooting a quick look at Cora. “Oh you’re on your own there. One thing I’ve learned is that you chose your battles when you get the chance, and this is one I definitely can’t see you winning.”

Cora rolled her eyes at the banter and then turned her attention back to Xander. “Will you tell us about your battles, Xander?” 

And there it was. What was the old saying? There were no atheists in foxholes - and there were precious few Scoobies on Reservations. This was uncharted territory and although he knew, deep down, that he could bluff and obfuscate and she would let him off the hook, he remembered his thought from the first day he arrived in Elk River – when he’d owed Joe as much honesty as he could safely offer, in return for his kindness, but that he also owed a young man in a faded photograph as much truth as he knew. Now he knew that he had found his balance, in the no-man’s land that lay between the two.

“I need to go.” He blurted it out and looked down briefly, vaguely surprised that the words weren’t splattered all over his shoes. So much for balance, but something tight in his stomach started to unclench now that the words were spoken. “I finally worked it out in my head and I have to go back. I’m sorry, I’m probably being really rude and you’ve all been so kind and understanding, and I’m crass and I feel like I’m throwing your hospitality in your face and ….I don’t know how to tell you what this last week has meant to me and…

“Xander, stop!” Joe’s squeezed Xander’s shoulder, emphasizing his request, and forcing Xander to bite his lip to keep the words from spilling out of his mouth. “Now, tell us why you need to go. I understand that you do. Just tell us why. Or as much of the ‘why’ as you can, okay?”

Xander’s eyes flicked across to the carving on the shelf that had given him so much focus earlier in the day, but Cora was still standing by the window and he knew that if he went near her, he really would fall apart. He took a breath and smiled faintly at Joe, enjoying the weight of the man’s hand on his shoulder, as if it could provide an anchor to his thoughts. “I’m sorry. It’s a habit from when I was younger – when I was nervous, I’d babble, and the more nervous I got, the faster the stream of words would get, until no-one would have a clue what I was talking about. And I’m doing it again. Sorry.” 

Joe raised his eyebrows and then lifted his other hand and made a show of cleaning out his ear, as if the previous gush of words had deafened him. 

Xander grinned, suddenly finding that the gesture had given him the courage to continue. “Okay. Enough with the babbling. I get it.“ He took another breath and glanced swiftly round the room, taking in all three faces, trying to commit them to memory before he lost them forever. “I don’t know how to say it, without saying it, which sounds ridiculous. I have a job and it kind of got on top me for a while. I did something…something I hated myself for, and I couldn’t cope. That’s why I Ieft Africa. But at the same time, it was just an excuse. I’ve wanted to come on this journey for so long, but the job has always been about duty, so I kept putting it off. Finally, I needed the break, to get away, so I gave myself a pass for a while. An excuse, I guess you could say. A chance to be selfish and follow my curiosity.”

“You make it sound like curiosity is a bad thing.”

Xander shook his head. “Well, look at Pandora and her box, that didn’t go too well.”

Joe smiled back, his head tilted slightly to the side, as if he was trying to come up with a suitable response, when Jacob saved him the trouble. “As I recall, at the end of it all, at the bottom of the box, there was hope.”

Rubbing one hand wearily across the back of his neck, Xander looked at the old man fondly. “Yeah, I guess so. Do you have to have an answer for everything?”

“Xander, I have lived long enough to realise the sheer scale of what I don’t know. But I do know about hope. I wouldn’t have travelled from here to California in search of a brother I’d never met, if I didn’t believe in hope.” 

Xander nodded, not willing to argue with Jacob. He knew the old man was right. If it wasn’t for hope, he would never have come to Elk River, and he certainly wouldn’t be contemplating going back. Hope and belief, balanced one on each shoulder had to be enough to take him forward.

“Knowing that you’re right doesn’t make me feel any less guilty. You’ve given me so much and I feel like I’m still hiding things from you. I have friends that I work with. They do good work, important work. Well, most of the time. But it’s not the kind of thing you can put on a résumé without getting locked in a padded room. I want to say more, but I don’t have a right to tell you their secrets.

Jacob nodded and tapped his pipe absently on his knee. “We all have secrets. Just because we have told you tales of the past, does not mean that you know everything about us. But that is one of the joys and frustrations of family – we all demand privacy, as well as openness, and one of the arts of good family is knowing the boundary between the two. You guard your friends’ secrets, that is enough, and perhaps, one day, you will know when the time has come to move the boundary line. When that time comes, you know that we will be here.”

Staring at the floor, counting the tiles at his feet, Xander realised that he was still standing in the doorway and he thought fleetingly on the logistics of the moment - Cora, Jacob and Joe, so firmly and solidly rooted in the room, while he stood on the threshold, neither in one world, nor the other. He acknowledged the symbolism in the privacy of his thoughts, before turning his attention back to Jacob, who was watching, as if he knew what Xander was thinking.

“Will you seek them out – your friends?”

“Yes. I mean, eventually I will. I want to be as honest with you as you’ve been with me. But I need permission. Some secrets aren’t mine to tell. It’s not really about me, it’s about them.”

Jacob laughed softly. “Somehow I doubt that. But I understand that it is another matter of trust. They trust you and you honour that trust.

“Yeah. We’ve been using that word a lot, these last few days.” His gaze flicked around the room like he was trying to capture every detail in his head, to pore over, like a miser gloating over his gold. “You know, I’ll never forget this week. I’ll never forget the gifts you’ve given me – your stories and your welcome and your trust.”

Jacob glanced across at his daughter as she stood backlit by the afternoon sun and then returned his attention to Xander. “Of course you won’t forget,” he said. But you do need to go and we will do our best to understand, to remember this week with fondness. It’s a good choice, but you will be back – for visits, or for good, it is impossible to say. But I am certain that you will be back – if only to enjoy Cora’s coffee. “

Xander rubbed his hand against the door jam, feeling an occasional rough edge of wood catch under his fingers as he listened to Jacob’s reply, but at the old man’s closing words he couldn’t help but laugh. “Now you’ve reminded me of another reason not to leave.”

Jacob opened his mouth to answer, but stopped before he could get started when Cora left her place by the window and came to stand by his chair, one hand resting lightly on the back. “I think you have all drunk enough coffee for the day. Go and wash up, all three of you. Dinner will be ready soon. Joe’s cousin has brought me another rabbit and I seem to remember that you enjoyed that, the last time round.

Xander thought back to that first night, eating rabbit stew and sweet potato mash, washed down with a cold beer. One week, just one week before. If someone had told him, he wouldn’t have believed that his life could change so much in such a short time. But then he remembered a sixteen year old boy hiding in the musty stacks of a school library, unintentionally eavesdropping on a conversation that had changed his world. Jacob was right – there was no such thing as coincidence. With that thought, combined with hope and belief and knowledge of family, perhaps it was enough to brave the future, in whatever form it might appear. The ‘Future’, now that was a word he never ever thought he’d have the nerve to capitalise, but now, he thought that, finally, he might have the courage to try.


	13. Epilogue

Xander picked up his duffle and stood at the end of the hammock, fingering the strings and wondering for the umpteenth time how something so deceptively fragile could have supported him for the last week. Smiling softly, he realised that the same could be said of his whole new family – Cora, so delicate and yet stronger than steel; Jacob, old and battered but tempered by so much experience and knowledge, and Joe, the father he’d wished for all his life and never found until now, quiet and sombre, but when he laughed, it felt like he could move a mountain in a single heartbeat. They’d welcomed him, told their tales, listened to his questions and acknowledged his attempts to tell as much of his own truth as he was able. They’d accepted and supported and they'd allowed him the space to find his equilibrium. Now they were letting him leave and he knew he owed them the courtesy of having the courage to try.

He wasn’t sure how much he would ever tell anyone about the evening before. Like his first evening, eating that first rabbit, he had a wash of impressions, of taste, and sound, and sensation. But specifics were another matter. Jacob had spoken about the delicate dance of family – of privacy and openness, and he knew that the individual memories of that last meal would remain in the deepest portions of his mind for a long time to come.

Shouldering the duffle, he took one last, long look around the workshop, turned and walked out of the door, closing it carefully behind him. He skirted the edge of the house until he came to the front, where he knew everyone would be gathered. There was only the one Greyhound passing near to Elk River each day, going south, and that was at 7.30 in the morning. The previous evening Joe had offered to take him back to the highway to wait for the bus and Cora had tried to insist that he have a good breakfast before he left. It had been an awkward conversation, because he’d accepted Joe’s offer, but said no to Cora. He knew there was nothing he wanted more than to sit at the wooden table, one more time, drinking coffee and watching her move around her kitchen, weaving in and out of the fragile beams of the early morning sun. But he’d known that if he did so, he’d never want to get on the bus, so he’d managed to persuade her that he’d be fine. He could tell she didn’t believe him, but she’d let the matter lie, and he knew that she probably knew damn fine what he’d been thinking. 

Now it had come to the crunch point - the goodbyes. Xander took a deep breath as he walked towards them and set his duffle down on the ground by his feet. In the sunlight, the yellow in Jacob’s silver hair reminded Xander of childhood crayons, and he found himself wondering again, as he’d done so many times in the past week, how the smallest of memories could link the past, the present, and the future. Cora stood next to her father, her hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans and her hair pulled back in a high ponytail so that Xander could see every minute expression as it flitted across her face. Joe stood off to the side, leaning against the tailgate of the truck, seemingly content to let others take centre stage.

Xander mirrored Cora’s stance, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “You know, I’m really bad at goodbyes. I never know what to say, so I usually say something dumb and inappropriate and I really don’t want to say anything dumb.” God, he’d known this would be hard, but he hadn't expected it to be this hard.

Jacob shook his head, in mock exasperation. “So don’t,” he said. “Say what you really want to say and be content.” He made it seem like the simplest thing in the world.

Xander studied the old man’s face, seeing again the lines of hard work and age etched into tanned skin, as if every step on his long journey to California and back as a boy was mapped into his flesh. He pondered the thought and it felt right, and somehow it freed something in his mind, giving him permission to say what he needed. “Okay,” he said. “I didn’t know what I would find when I set out to come here. I had an old photograph and bunch of curiosity and questions. I guess I hoped I’d find out a bit more about the man in the picture. And I did. But…” He faltered for a second, trying to gather his thoughts. “But I never expected to find this. To find family. I don’t think I can put into words what that means. Sure, I’ve got the family I grew up with, and even the one I chose to be part of. But to discover I’ve got a history, that there are stories and memories that maybe, one day, I can tell my own kids…it’s just kind of overwhelming. It’s something I never expected to find and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you all, for that. And for your kindness and hospitality and for a bunch of things I can’t even start to explain.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and rubbed one over his eye patch, while the other pulled at a thread at the bottom of his shirt.

A much smaller hand closed over his own, stopping him for worrying at the thread. “And perhaps, for helping you realise that you have to go back?” Cora suggested gently.

“Yeah, that too.” He studied her hand, noting the difference in size and colour and then looked up and smiled wryly at her. “I didn’t think I had the strength to go back, but there are things that need doing and I think I can help.” He paused and glanced briefly at each of them. “I know I can help. Or at least, I have to try.

“Have you stopped hating yourself?” 

Her voice was still gentle, but her questions were as hard as they’d been all week and he stalled for time, even though he knew that he would tell her the truth. “What?”

Cora squeezed his hand firmly, before turning it face up, as if she could read every diversionary tactic he’d ever known, from the lines in the palm of his hand. “Yesterday you said that something had happened in Africa. Something that had made you hate yourself.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess.” She looked at him knowingly and he flushed and glanced away, before forcing himself to meet her eyes. “When I dreamed the other night, I dreamed about it. I killed someone. My stomach still heaves when I think about it.”

The grip on his hand didn’t falter. “Did you have a choice?”

He shook his head, rubbing at the back of his neck. “No. No I didn’t have a choice and I guess seeing it in my dream, I finally realised that. I’ll never forget what I did, but I know, now, that there was nothing else I could have done.”

Cora nodded, as if that’s what she had been waiting to hear. "So you have learned from your dream, which is as it should be. Now take your understanding and use it wisely.”

Xander stood, staring at her small, work roughened hand, trying to think of something fitting to say in reply, when Joe coughed once, breaking the silence. “You know, if you’re going to have any chance of catching that Greyhound, we really need to get going, or else we’ll be doing this all again tomorrow. Not that I’m against that, or anything.”

Xander grinned at Joe and then turned and smiled shyly at Jacob and Cora. “Thank you again.”

Cora squeezed his hand once more, before letting it go and stepping to the side when Jacob walked forward.

“The only thanks we need is the knowledge that you will come back. And perhaps write from time to time, to let us know how you are. Remember, there is a tradition of letter writing in this family.” The old man extended his hand and Xander mimicked the motion. Jacob’s grip was firm and Xander felt himself drawing courage and strength from the feel of the old man’s calloused hand. They stood, hands together, and then Jacob caught his gaze and held it, just for a moment, before nodding, like he was satisfied by what he saw.

Xander turned to Cora, trying to work out what to say, but she simply stood on her toes and hugged him tightly. He felt like he could stay like that forever. “Good luck,” she whispered. ”Don’t forget us.” 

Xander shook his head at the absurdity of her words. “Never,” he murmured. They stood, still hugging for a second longer, until Joe coughed again, interrupting them and she let him go.

“You know, if you continue like that, I’m going to start thinking you’ve got designs on my wife that go beyond getting her to make you coffee.”

Xander snorted. “Damn, busted. Now you know why I’ve got to leave. I have to say, I was still trying to work out if you could fit two people in that hammock!”

Joe winked at him and glanced briefly across at Cora. “Let’s just say, it’s a lot of fun trying to work out the logistics and leave it at that! And on that note, we really do need to get going.” Joe picked up the duffle lying at Xander’s feet, turned and stowed the bag in the open flat bed of the old truck. He stood waiting by the driver’s door, and Xander knew that he was giving him one last moment of space and privacy.

Xander turned his attention away from the truck when Cora bent down and picked up a small canvas bag that he hadn’t really noticed on the ground at her side. “Here,” she said. “Since you were being as stubborn as a mule about breakfast, I made you some sandwiches for the bus. There’s some water and stuff in there, as well. And before you say anything, I know that you’d probably just eat a pile of junk food at the nearest rest stop, so this way I know that you will at least get out of the state before you start shoving rubbish into your mouth.”

Xander knew there was too much truth in her statement to even think about arguing, so he accepted the bag from her – their fingers just touching briefly during the exchange and then the contact was gone, as fleeting as a breath of wind in a hot desert.

“Thank you.” The words, as always, seemed so inadequate, but they were all he had, and he looked from Cora to Jacob and back again, trying to burn the scene into his brain, before turning quickly and walking to the truck, sliding into the passenger’s side before he could change his mind.

No words were said as the old truck bounced across the small bridge over the river and back up the hill. Xander could hear the engine struggle with the slope and Joe shifted into a lower gear with a practiced flick of his wrist. They broached the crest of the hill and without being asked, Joe eased the old truck to a stop and Xander opened his door and swung himself out so that he was standing, balanced, on the sill of the truck, one hand gripping the top of the open door and the other laid flat on the hot metal roof. He stared back down at the small horseshoe of houses, protected by the sparkling river. It looked like a child’s model, made out of Lego, but he knew better. This was real, they were real. Not toy town, not Disneyland - just real people with real problems and a real sense of who they were and where they came from. He squinted against the sun and was sure that he could still see two small figures standing by the river bend, gazing up the hill. Swallowing hard, he took a deep breath before easing himself back into his seat, pulling the door shut behind him.

The truck moved off and nothing was said for the next ten minutes, until they came to the end of the unpaved road, passing the battered wooden sign pointing to Elk River. Joe swung the truck right, onto the highway, retracing the route from days before. Another five minutes ticked by and even in the early sunlight, the air in the cab was hot and thick, and Xander shifted restlessly in his seat, drumming his fingers on the sill of the open window. He could almost feel Joe watching him out of the corner of his eye, so he wasn’t surprised when the Joe broke the silence. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are." Joe’s disbelief was evident in the tone of his voice. “You know, it’s funny..?

“What?” Xander knew that he should spend this last precious time with Joe, talking and laughing and trying to express again, everything he felt about the last week, but then he heard a low laugh echo round the stifling cab of the truck and he turned to find Joe grinning at him. “So what is so funny?”

“You. You’re thinking again. It’s not even 7.00 and it’s too early to be thinking that loudly.”

Xander ducked his head, flushing as if he’d somehow offended Joe, after all he’d done. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just relax. I’m not one for deep conversations, so there’s no need to try. Remember, I just married into the family, and I let Cora and Jacob do the heavy lifting.” He shrugged and the self deprecating gesture was so familiar that Xander almost laughed when he recognised it. But before he could say anything, Joe was speaking again. “I’m glad that you came and that we could help you find what you needed. I understand that you need to leave and I hope that one day you will be back. What else needs to be said?”

“Well, if you put it like that….”

“I do. And while I’m at it, Jacob meant what he said about you writing to him. But we’ve also got one of those new fangled things they call a telephone. Do you think you could get the hang of one of those?”

“Well, I’m not that good at learning new things. But I’m willing to try.”

Joe grinned back at him. “That’s all I’m asking you to do, Xander. All you can do is try.”

The tone was light, but like the almost conversation they’d had in the cab of the same truck just over a week before, the words hung in the air, sinking into the deepest parts of Xander’s mind. Then the moment was gone and Joe was fiddling with the radio, trying to find a signal. The old truck sped along the blacktop and the comfortable silence lasted all the way to the crossroads where Xander had left the Greyhound at the end of one journey and the start of another.

They’d only been stopped by the roadside for ten minutes or so when Xander heard the hum of the coach in the distance. He pushed himself up off the side of Joe’s truck and watched as the Greyhound slowed down and finally stopped. The door hissed as it opened and the driver in his shiny, stained jacket grinned, showing tobacco stained teeth. He jerked his head. “So you getting in, or what?”

Xander looked back at Joe and the older man shook his head and drew him into a quick, hard hug. “Go. Be happy and come back and see us soon. Perhaps your friends will have given you the permission you need, and you can finally give us the whole of your tale in return.”

Xander nodded, fighting down the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. “I promise. I’ll definitely be back.”

Smiling, Joe picked up the duffle from the ground and handed it over. “Good, I’ll hold you to that. But for now, will you go straight to LA?”

“No.” Xander took a breath and glanced behind him briefly, conscious of the coach driver drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering column. He turned back, risking one more quick conversation. “LA’s important, but it’s second on my list.”

“So what comes first?”

“I need to go to Des Moines.”

“And I should ask – what is in Des Moines?”

“My mom. She’s caretaking a bed and breakfast there. I haven’t seen her in a while. I guess you could say that I have a story to tell. I don’t know if she’ll want to hear it, but I know that I need to try.”

Joe smiled, his face seeming to light up at Xander’s decision. “It is a good choice. Good luck.”

The coach driver muttered in the background about schedules and people who couldn’t make up their mind and Xander gripped Joe's hand briefly before boarding the bus. He headed towards a row near the back with two empty seats side by side, stowing his duffle in the locker above his head. The doors hissed again as they shut and the bus rumbled on its way.

Xander settled in his seat and craned his neck to look out of the back window. Joe stood in the dust of the highway, next to the old truck, and Xander watched until he was a pinprick in the distance and finally disappeared. He twisted back in his seat and thought briefly that the whole week felt strangely like had been part of a bigger dream, but then he looked at the seat beside him, empty apart from the canvas bag that Cora had given him. Right on cue, his stomach grumbled and he realised that consciously missing breakfast had definitely not been a dream. Eagerly, he started to dig into the bag, pulling out a canteen of water, an apple, a slab of fruitcake and a package of sandwiches that would have kept even his teenage self happy, for at least an hour or so. He spread his riches out on the empty seat, trying to decide what to eat first, when he noticed one more item in the bottom of the small bag. He drew it out, anticipating what else Cora had made him. But it wasn’t more food he was holding, it was a small package wrapped in soft leather. His fingers ran over the covering, enjoying the feel of the soft skin in his hands. Balancing the parcel carefully on his knees, he unwrapped it slowly. As he pulled the last piece of leather away, he saw a black and white picture of a girl in farm overalls, standing on top of a hay bale, grinning at whoever had the camera. Xander’s hands shook as he lifted it up for a closer look and the girl looked back as if she was smiling for him. He smiled back and then carefully put the picture aside and reached for the next photograph in the bundle. This one was a shot of a dark haired girl with solemn eyes, standing on tiptoe to reach an apple on the lowest branch of a tree, in the middle of what looked like an orchard. The third was a photo of a child who looked achingly familiar, sitting on the steps of an old timber porch, a man who could have been her father sitting, grinning, at her side. A small wooden doll hung from the little girl’s hand and Xander felt like his heart was in his throat. Finally, he took a breath and set that picture with the rest, revealing the final photograph in the pile. It was a picture of Joe and Cora, with Jacob standing off to the side, his pipe in hand, and Xander felt the tears start to slide down his face.

He sat staring at the final picture for a long time, before noticing that although there were no more photographs, there was still a folded piece of paper sitting on the leather wrapper. Rubbing the back of his hand against his face to wipe away the tears, he plucked the paper out of its resting place, carefully placed the stack of photographs back in their covering and placed them gently down on the seat beside him, next to the rest of Cora’s presents. 

The paper was blue and the ink was red and the handwriting was surprisingly round and childlike, but even before he started to read, he knew who the author was and as he absorbed the words, he knew it couldn’t have been written by anyone else.

_Xander_

_I am glad that you found what you were looking for when you started your journey. I believe that you have also given us a great gift, to fill a gap in our own lives. We value our history and the passing down of our stories through each generation is the most important thing any of us can do. I hope that what you have learned will help you on whatever path you tread and I know in my heart that we will see you back in Elk River one day, if only for a visit. I believe that your future lies in the world and I would give you these photographs to remind you of our story. Keep them safe for me and then I will know that Francis will not be alone. He will have his family with him and you can take them all forward into your own part of this tale._

_My thoughts will be with you._

_Cora._

His hands shook again as he reread the note before folding it carefully and sliding it back to the bottom of the pile of photographs sitting on the seat beside him. He stared at them for a moment, trying to order his thoughts, before hauling his battered wallet out of his pocket and pulling out the small Ziploc bag from the back compartment. He opened it and gently took out the faded photo of Francis that had prompted his quest. He ran his fingers over it, as he had done so many times before, and then he placed it on the top of the pile of family photographs. Family – there was that capitalised word again and each time he turned it over in his head, the thought became more comfortable and seemed to sink further into his consciousness.

He closed up the leather flaps on the bundle and looked down at the items scattered on the empty seat. The water and the fruit and sandwiches were fuel for his body, but he knew that with the photographs, Cora had also given him sustenance for his heart and his soul.

He looked at the small bundle and thought back to the start of the journey. It had started in death, under the heat of the African sun. And he had learned of so many deaths along the way. Francis’ mother, dying in childbirth, leaving his father grieving, and triggering Francis’ departure into the wider world at the age of sixteen. Elizabeth dying of TB, condemning Jessica to wither in her grandparents’ house. He acknowledged the brother or sister he’d never known, wondering what they would have been like and how his own life might have been different if they’d survived. It was all about death, but as he lifted the small, unassuming leather bundle and placed it carefully back in his lap, he realised that it was also about life. That’s what the photographs taught him. He had learned about the past and found a present he didn’t know existed. 

He closed his eyes, letting the rhythm of the bus soothe him as he thought back on his week in Elk River and the story he had heard. The history of his family looked both backwards and forwards and it gave a sense of continuity and identity to the whole. That is what Jessica had lost in her grandparents’ house, but Xander realised that somehow she’d known and she’d kept the box safe, and kept it secret, and perhaps somewhere in the recesses of her private thoughts, she’d hoped that one day she could bring it back out into the light of day. He thought back to a hot summer’s day, and an attic, and a small boy searching for treasures in the dark. Like Pandora before him, he had not been prepared for what he had found when he opened the box, but he remembered Jacob’s words: at the bottom there had been hope. He’d lost it in Africa and regained it in the most unlikely of places, in a way he could never have imagined. Now he had a story to tell and a dream to interpret and whatever came afterwards, he would meet it with his head held high, sure in the knowledge that he had a history and that he was part of a bigger tale.


End file.
